Animal Planet Uncovers Mystery of the Lost Islands in a New Series

Animal Planet will air MYSTERY OF THE LOST ISLANDS, an all-new series featuring renowned zoologist, animal trainer and television presenter Dave Salmoni. In a unique approach that blends all the splendor of a natural history series with an incredible investigative twist, audiences follow Dave as detective while he sets out to crack some of the last big secrets surrounding the world’s most successful natural-born killers. MYSTERY OF THE LOST ISLANDS will premiere on Animal Planet on January 19 and will air Monday to Friday at 9 pm.

The six-part series puts Dave’s expertise and survival skills to the test as he faces the terrifying unknown. Getting dangerously close to the world's wildest creatures — from the vampire bat and the great hammerhead shark to the killer whale and the grizzly bear — Dave lives alongside them to uncover the secrets of their domination in these strange, confined places, over and above any of the other species that live there.

“This is Animal Planet at its best: exploring areas unknown and providing unprecedented access to awe-inspiring environments,” said Rahul Johri, EVP & GM – South Asia, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific.   “Dave Salmoni’s extraordinary wildlife expertise, captured by world class filmmakers, has produced that rare hybrid of blue chip programming: natural history and adventure set against a spine-tingling mystery – making MYSTERY OF THE LOST ISLANDS a truly incredible series and must-see programming event.”

Follow Dave on this heart-stopping adventure amidst the striking hidden beauty of the untamed islands of Rangiroa, Falklands, Admiralty, Fernandina and Coiba.

Only by venturing closer than most would dare to the world’s wildest creatures will Dave uncover their secrets. Viewers will be awed as Dave’s skills and survival are put to the test, and likewise as he illuminates the intricate inner workings of nature.

Dave Salmoni is Animal Planet’s large predator expert and host of Discovery Networks International and Animal Planet’s upcoming series, MYSTERY OF THE LOST ISLANDS.

In 2012, Salmoni hosted Animal Planet’s six-part series, Frontier Earth Presented by Walmart, where he took viewers on a guided journey to the frontlines of major ecosystems, unfolding plights of the world’s most enigmatic animals.

In the 2011 series, World’s Deadliest Towns, Salmoni walked the line between the wild and human world to explore the disappearing delicate balance between wildlife and civilization. Traveling to three transitional danger zones, Salmoni risked his own life to understand what has pushed wild creatures and humans into deadly conflict.

Salmoni has hosted and contributed to a number of Animal Planet programs including Into the Pride, Rogue Nature, Predator vs. Prey, Living with Tigers, Into the Lion’s Den and After the Attack among several more. As large predator expert, Salmoni is the go-to source on Animal Planet’s wild animal programming, providing expert opinion and commentary on series like Fatal Attractions.

Salmoni, 39, wears many hats. He’s a zoologist, a renowned animal trainer, a television presenter and a producer with his own South Africa-based production company, Triosphere. And, Salmoni successfully has been able to marry all these titles, emphasizing one common denominator – his love for animals. Salmoni was named one of Cosmo’s Fun and Fearless Males (2008) and was included as one of People’s sexiest bachelors (2009). In addition, he hosted the ABC series, Expedition Impossible, in 2011.

Born and raised in Sarnia, Ontario, Salmoni always surrounded himself with wildlife. First venturing into the Canadian bush on his own at the age of seven, the young Salmoni was no stranger to the natural world and all that lived within it. Adorning his walls with pictures of big cats and having been the proud owner of a number of domestic pets including dogs, cats and hamsters, Salmoni found his passion early.

Salmoni embraced this passion, and his mother, a competitive figure skating coach, and father, a chemical engineer, fostered his love for the wild. Salmoni studied zoology at the Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, and wrote his undergraduate thesis on tracking the hibernation of Canadian black bears. Also while in university, Salmoni was certified in Chemical Immobilization of Wildlife and worked on an elk relocation project and at a deer count station for the Ministry of Natural Resources.

In 1998, Salmoni began his apprenticeship as an animal trainer at Bowmanville Zoological Park near Toronto, one of the world’s largest humane-credited providers of highly trained animals. Salmoni focused on large cat training and has been training large cats as well as other predators since then. It was during this time that Salmoni encountered his first animal attack. Salmoni knew Bongo, an adult African lion, for many months and had worked with him closely. Nevertheless, this impressive 500+ pound cat showed his aggression and possessiveness over a bit of carpet that Salmoni was using during training, proving that wild animals are indeed wild. Salmoni, overcoming the attack and respecting the large cat, continued to train him and learned one of the most valuable lessons of his life– that the safest cat is also the most dangerous cat, and as a trainer, one must never lose focus.

In early 2000, Salmoni was offered a life-changing opportunity to be the first to travel with two captive-bred Bengal tigers to Africa and train them how to hunt and survive in the wild. Salmoni combined his trainer and zoology techniques to achieve this conservation goal, which was documented in Animal Planet and Discovery Channel’s Living with Tigers. Following this experience, Salmoni lived among African lions for three months in an attempt to show that lions and humans can co-exist in the same area; this journey was captured in the documentary Into the Lion’s Den, which aired on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel.

Throughout the past several years, Salmoni has developed his career as a television presenter and a producer, forming his own production company, Triosphere, which specializes in natural history filmmaking.

In his spare time, Salmoni likes to spend his time at his family’s cottage in Ontario, which is surrounded by an abundance of wildlife. He’s an avid outdoorsman, enjoys sports and loves to build things. Outside of his native Canada, Salmoni enjoys Yellowstone National Park and South Africa, where he has lived for five consecutive years and since then, he continues to visit three months out of the year.

Episodes’ Descriptions

RANGIROA, “SHARK ISLAND”
The adventure begins on the South Pacific island of Rangiroa – a secluded site with a frightening reputation as the shark capital of the world and home to thousands of deadly sharks. Blacktip reef sharks, tiger sharks, silvertips, grey reef sharks and great hammerheads; these top predators are normally found in small numbers, but here in the middle of an ocean often described as a marine desert, they seem to congregate in incredible numbers. How can one island support so many large sharks? What is drawing them here? In the process of finding out, Dave has some truly close encounters with these marine predators.

FALKLANDS, “KILLER WHALE ISLAND”
Dave travels to a remote speck of land in the wild and stormy South Atlantic. Each year, thousands of elephant seals, sea lions and penguins flock to the Falklands to breed. But they are pursued by the ocean’s greatest predator, the killer whales, who lay siege to the island. With the island fortress quickly becoming a prison, it becomes a gamble between life and death for the seals – one that, up until recently, they had survived through their sheer numbers. But lately, they have been disappearing at greater rates than normal. What else could be out there preying on them? Dave is determined to find out.

ADMIRALTY, “GRIZZLY ISLAND”
Dave journeys to a harsh, mountainous island off the coast of Alaska in the Northeast Pacific –home to the greatest concentration of grizzly bears on the planet. The grizzlies could easily “escape” the island for more fertile pickings on the mainland, but choose not to. Dave sets out to find out how Admiralty can support so many of these huge bears, and in the process, is cornered by grizzlies, trapped inside his tent and amazed by what he sees on his camera traps.

FERNANDINA, “VOLCANO ISLAND”
Dave ventures to Fernandina island – a completely protected, uninhabited and actively volcanic island in the legendary Galapagos Archipelago. To access the island, Dave and the crew have to go through a rigorous quarantine process, all to track down some of the weirdest and toughest animals on the planet to find out how they survive in this hell on Earth. Dave’s mission takes him into freezing waters with rare marine iguanas and flightless cormorants, before witnessing lightning-fast snakes on the hunt, which in turn are being hunted by eagles. On this do-or-die island, life is always on the edge of a knife and without permission to camp overnight, Dave is in a race against the clock each day to uncover its secrets.

COIBA, “DEVIL’S ISLAND”
Unspoiled and unexplored Coiba is a shining green jewel off the coast of Panama – rich in trees, rare animals and flora – but it remains largely ignored by the locals and has never been plundered, settled or poached. But why? In perhaps his darkest mission yet, Dave journeys into the heart of Coiba in an attempt to uncover the secret behind stories of ghosts, torture, vampires and death that seem to haunt the island.

MAKING OF (DEADLIEST MOMENTS)
In this episode, Dave reveals the extreme lengths to which he and his wildlife teams went to produce the series. They battled through many hardships, terrible weather and dangerous animal encounters – not to mention broken equipment and exhaustion. But somehow, despite the trials of the year-long filming schedule, Dave manages to retain his unique sense of humour, and passion for the animals and islands he is privileged to witness firsthand