Jeremy Wade
Jeremy Wade is a British television presenter, an author of books on angling, and a biologist. He is known for his television series River Monsters.
He has a degree in zoology from Bristol University and a postgrad teaching certificate in biological sciences from the University of Kent, and has worked as a secondary school biology teacher.
He grew up in south-east England, on the banks of the Suffolk Stour, where his fascination with the underwater world began - and the desire to always see "what's around the next bend". His first overseas trip was to the mountain rivers of India in 1982, and since then he has increasingly spent his time tracking down large and little-known fish in rivers around the world - particularly in the Congo and Amazon rainforests.
"I don't see myself as a particularly expert angler," he says. "But what I am able to do is get into the kinds of places where outsiders don't normally go, with enough energy left to put a line in the water. Teaming up with local fishermen is vital to success, and what's great about this approach is that you get to see beneath the surface of diverse human cultures too."
In between catching fish (or, on some journeys, not catching fish), he has also caught malaria, been detained as a suspected spy, narrowly escaped drowning, been threatened at gunpoint, and survived a plane crash.
In 1992 he co-wrote (with Paul Boote) 'Somewhere Down The Crazy River' - a book that is considered to be one of the classics of angling literature. He has also written on travel and natural history for publications including The Times, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, The Field and BBC Wildlife magazine.
During his career he has achieved a number of notable 'firsts'. These include filming a large mystery creature in an Amazon lake (dubbed 'the Amazon Nessie' by BBC Wildlife magazine), and getting the first underwater footage (with cameraman Rick Rosenthal) of the 'Giant Devil Catfish' in India.
His first TV series, Jungle Hooks, filmed in 2002 for Discovery Europe, was one of the most-watched shows on multichannel TV when it was released, and has since been seen by audiences around the world. River Monsters, his most recent series, has achieved the highest ever audience figures in the history of Animal Planet. A third season of River Monsters will be broadcast in 2011.
When not camped beside a remote river, Jeremy lives in Somerset, England, in the countryside near Bath.
“...I'm momentarily transfixed, torn between curiosity and fear. I can pull it up the gently sloping mud bank, but then what? Already thought is lagging behind events, as the blotchy brown mass slides up wet mud toward me, its amorphous margins flowing into the craters left by retreating feet. In the center of the yard-wide disc is a raised turret where two eyes open and close, flashing black. And it's bellowing. A loud rhythmic sound that is at first inexplicable until I realize that those blinking eyes are its spiracles, now sucking in air instead of water, which it is pumping out via gill slits on its underside. And all the while it brandishes that blade, stabbing the air like a scorpion...”