Look Nature in the Eye With the Launch of New TV Network Nat Geo WILD

Traverse the Globe for the Most Intimate, Extraordinary and Unforgettable Stories of the Animal Kingdom

Premiere Lineup for New Network Includes Rebellious Monkeys, Angry Giraffes, and a Man and His Best Friend -- Brutus the Grizzly Bear

New TV Network Nat Geo WILD Launches Monday, March 29, 2010

WASHINGTON, March 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- For more than 30 years, National Geographic has been the leader in wildlife programming.  Now, against a global backdrop of increasingly urgent conservation challenges facing wildlife, Nat Geo WILD is giving the animal kingdom center stage as it features the work of some of the world's foremost explorers, filmmakers and scientists.

Scheduled to launch Monday, March 29, 2010, both Nat Geo WILD and Nat Geo WILD HD will traverse the globe to bring the most extraordinary stories of the natural world in more compelling and visually dynamic ways than ever before.  New series and specials will feature the latest technology to immerse viewers in the mysterious and entertaining lives of nature's ferocious fighters and gentle creatures of land, sea and air.

Nat Geo WILD premiere specials, new series and blue chip programming will include Africa's Lost Eden, which takes viewers to war-torn Mozambique, where park rangers are desperately trying to execute one of the most ambitious animal relocation efforts in history and restore one of their country's greatest natural treasures.  Then, travel to Jaipur, India, where an audacious troop of Rebel Monkeys is on a crime spree.  In Expedition Wild with Casey Anderson, the naturalist treks to Yellowstone and Alaska's Kodiak Island to learn more about wild bear behavior — and teach these skills to his grizzly pal, raised in captivity.  Two National Geographic Explorers lead viewers through very different paradises:  Mireya Mayor delves deep into Congo's forests to enter the private world of the Mystery Gorillas, and Enric Sala plunges into shark-filled waters to learn the secrets of Shark Island.

Premiere programs include:

Rebel Monkeys - NEW SERIES

Premieres Wednesday, March 31, at 8 PM ET/PT

Airs Weekly – Wednesdays at 8 PM ET/PT

They're a diabolical nuisance, yet considered sacred.  But for a gang of monkeys making their home at the Galta Temple in the Indian city of Jaipur, it's an easy life — lounge by the sacred pool, groom your friends and accept handouts from worshippers paying respect to the Hindu Monkey God Hanuman.  But their happy days may be numbered.  When a lingering drought threatens local food supplies, the monkeys face an end to their easy gravy train.  Join this charismatic fuzzy-haired crew as they search for food and find trouble on the chaotic streets of Jaipur.

Expedition Wild with Casey Anderson – NEW SERIES

Premieres Monday, April 5, at 9 PM ET/PT

Airs Weekly – Mondays at 9 PM ET/PT

The premiere episode of Expedition Wild is a multipart look at North America's mightiest carnivores, featuring naturalist Casey Anderson and his best friend Brutus, a 900-pound grizzly bear.  Trek to Alaska's Kodiak Island, where Casey gets knee-deep in grizzly life in order to teach Brutus the ways of his wild relatives.  This population of more than 3,500 bears offers Casey a chance to witness how they catch wild salmon and feed their young.  Casey then returns to Montana to see if he can teach a bear raised in captivity to fish for himself, in an aquarium designed for that purpose.  Future episodes of Expedition Wild will focus on the wild wolves of Yellowstone; a journey with Casey trekking through Yellowstone during two key seasons — winter and spring — documenting every living thing he encounters; and a one-hour special with the complete history of his relationship with Brutus.

Mystery Gorillas with Mireya Mayor

Premieres Monday, April 5, at 10 PM ET/PT

National Geographic Emerging Explorer Mireya Mayor immerses herself in the secret lives of wild gorillas, learning about new behaviors and group dynamics, such as the role of female choice and limited tool use.  Travel to the forests of northern Congo, where record numbers of western lowland gorillas live unseen in the dense foliage.  Mireya's quest to see them up close gives her the chance to get to know the intimate details of one family — a big male named Kingo and his clan of females and young.  She also travels to a gorilla gathering spot to witness their group dynamics and study their larger social structure.

Africa's Lost Eden

Premieres Monday, April 12, at 10 PM ET/PT

It was said to be "the place where Noah left his Ark."  Lush floodplains in central Mozambique packed with wild animals and more than 500 species of birds.  But in 1977, civil war engulfed the area, and close to one million people lost their lives.  Many thousands of buffalo, zebra and hippos were slaughtered for meat, and elephants for ivory.  Of the 14,000 buffalo that roamed the savannah before the war, fewer than 15 remained; of the 3,000 zebra, just five.  The legendary Gorongosa Wildlife Park had become an empty Eden with a broken ecosystem.  Africa's Lost Eden documents the extraordinary efforts of conservationists fighting to restore the park and replenish the animal populations.  Travel to South Africa, where an unprecedented effort is under way to relocate elephants and hippos to Gorongosa, even as the wounded landscape is vulnerable to drought and fire.  For a war-wounded country desperately seeking a symbol of hope, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Shark Island with Enric Sala

Premieres Monday, April 19, at 9 PM ET/PT

Secret coves where hammerheads school in enormous numbers.  Coral reefs that ripple with color by day but at night turn into killing grounds for packs of whitetip sharks.  Pristine waters brimming with missile-sized tuna and acrobatic dolphins in hot pursuit of gleaming clouds of fish.  Cocos Island, a tiny dot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean more than 300 miles (550 km) off the coast of Costa Rica, is home to one of the greatest concentrations of predators on the planet.  Dive into this carnivorous crowd in Shark Island with marine ecologist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Enric Sala and an international team of explorers and scientists. The team traverses hundreds of square miles of ocean in search of clues to explain why so many predators congregate and why, just outside Cocos' protected waters, life largely disappears.

Hunt for the Giant Octopus

Premieres Tuesday, April 20, at 9 PM ET/PT

It's one of the ocean's most enigmatic creatures, with eight legs, high intelligence and the ability to discreetly melt into its surroundings. The giant octopus is said to reach 33 feet across, can weigh 400 pounds and is known as the "devilfish" for the horns above its eyes.  With the ability to kill sharks, this is one animal even larger in life than in legend.  Now, a team of intrepid explorers dive into the wild depths of the Pacific in hopes of unlocking the secrets to this mysterious and magnificent animal.  Journey through ghostly shipwrecks and wildlife on a deep-sea adventure into the world of the giant octopus.  And discover these creatures' phenomenal size, remarkable intelligence and extraordinary ability to morph in response to their surroundings.

My Life Is a Zoo

Premieres Monday, April 26, at 10 PM ET/PT

Living the wild life doesn't always mean fun and partying for Bud DeYoung and Carrie Cramer.  They live together with over 400 animal residents, and work together, rescuing exotic animals, rehabilitating local wildlife and running a struggling small zoo in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. With no days off and no vacation, their relationship has more than its fair share of pressure. They sometimes butt heads, but mostly they share a deep passion for animals.  My Life Is a Zoo follows this couple at their DeYoung Family Zoo as they constantly work to keep up with the demands of their business, while tending to their huge and ever-growing wild family.  The zoo is home to a diverse mix of exotic and regional animals, some of them rescued from distant parts of the world.  Carrie moved in seven years ago and since then the zoo has grown dramatically. It now includes a rehab and rescue program with Bud and Carrie adopting between three and 10 orphaned animals every week.

For more information, visit www.natgeowild.com .

NAT GEO WILD

For more than 30 years, National Geographic has been the leader in wildlife programming.  Now the animal kingdom is taking center stage on a brand-new network, Nat Geo WILD. Offering intimate encounters with nature's ferocious fighters and gentle creatures of land, sea and air, Nat Geo WILD and Nat Geo WILD HD will draw upon the cutting-edge work of the many explorers, filmmakers and scientists who have long-standing relationships with the National Geographic Society.  Nat Geo WILD is a joint venture between Fox Cable Networks (FCN) and National Geographic Ventures (NGV) -- the same partnership behind the National Geographic Channel (NGC), which launched January 2001 and has since been one the most successful new networks on the landscape.  Nat Geo WILD launched globally more than three years ago and is the fastest growing channel among the international portfolio of National Geographic networks.

SOURCE Nat Geo WILD