Beautiful Belize is being discovered little by little and it has gotten its fair share of publicity recently with international TV shows. For instance, The Travel Channel with Samantha Brown: Passport to Central America, Discovery Channels': Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, HGTV's House Hunters and most recently Travel Channel's: Bizarre Worlds with Andrew Zimmern. And this year it is has started off good with a new show in Animal Planet: Wild Recon with animal adventurer Donald Schultz who will be featuring Belize on a premier episode this coming Tuesday, January 19.

About the Episode:

Premiering Tuesday, January 19, at 8p.m.: On this mission, animal adventurer Donald Schultz travels to the exotic nation of Belize, nestled between Mexico and Guatemala on the Caribbean coast of Central America. He sets out on a dramatic search for deadly animals that are the targets of poachers, like crocodiles, sharks and rays.

His goal is to collect blood and tissue samples needed for research before these endangered animals disappear. He heads into the dense rainforest canopy to track down the loudest animal in the world, the howler monkey, a critically endangered primate that's falling prey to poachers. While there, Donald stumbles on his least favorite creature, a tarantula spider that's nearly as big as his hand. In an unusual "milking" procedure, Donald anesthetizes the spider, and then uses a tiny electric shock to draw its rare and understudied venom.

About the Show:

Born and raised in South Africa, Donald was the youngest person ever to give venomous snake demonstrations at the world-famous Fitzsimons Snake Park. But catching, caring for and studying snakes were not enough. Now, Donald travels the globe tracking down dangerous creatures, all in the name of science. He uses his animal acumen and taste for adrenaline for a greater cause, risking his own life for research that may one day save the lives of animals and humans.

On Tuesday, January 5, Animal Planet launched WILD RECON, a 10-part series featuring Donald, a world adventurer, animal expert and adrenaline junkie willing to do a job no one else dares to do. With support from the world's top veterinarians and animal researchers, Donald travels to remote and jeopardous locales to collect venom and rare DNA critical to cataloguing species and research that will one day save countless lives.

"The work I do on WILD RECON is literally my life's work," says Donald Schultz. "I've been going on these adventurous missions for years, and now the series spotlights the jeopardy that I enjoy in collecting these samples on behalf of the research community. I've dedicated my entire life to working with animals."

Schultz first premiered on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet as an expert, wrangler and consulting producer on I WAS BITTEN and guest host on FEEDING FRENZY: CROCODILE.

For more information on the show log on to www.animal.discovery.com and stay tuned to Animal Planet on Channel 50 this Tuesday, January 19 at 8:00 p.m. local time.

Ambergris Today