Animal Planet unleashing a new season of shows

Also look for the network's first competition show, with the provocative title "Top Hookers." (Relax. It deals with fishing.)

The slate of new programming, most of which will launch next year, is scheduled for unveiling to advertisers Thursday in New York at the upfront presentation of parent company Discovery Communications.

The lineup builds on Animal Planet's brand strategy of "Surprisingly Human," said Marjorie Kaplan, the channel's president and general manager.

"Animal Planet is still what you think we are — but it's bigger, better, funnier and louder," she explained during an interview last week. Viewers have responded, boosting the channel's average audience in the age 25-54 demographic by 25 percent, to nearly 300,000, in the past year.

Building on its hit "Whale Wars," the network plans to introduce "Rhino Wars," which follows a team of former U.S. Special Forces as they hunt down gangs of rhino poachers in South Africa whose greed threatens to reduce to near extinction the rhino population.

A new adventure series, "The Hunger," explores the ingenious (and often extreme) methods used by disparate world cultures to find, capture or cultivate food. Its host is survivalist Guy Grieve.

"Glory Hounds" stars the military working dogs that serve beside their human partners in Iraq and Afghanistan. From tracking insurgents to sniffing out explosives, these heroic canines are an integral component of the armed forces — and share deep emotional bonds with their human companions.

Watch anglers corral 300-pound sharks using only women's pantyhose. Watch them hunt for massive bass from a speeding kayak in whitewater rapids. On "Fish America," outdoorsman and pro wrestler "Showtime" Eric Young gets a line on some of the most creative, unexpected and dangerous fishing practices across the country. It is scheduled to air this summer.

Fishing is also the game on "Top Hooker," which splits 10 expert anglers into two teams for an eight-week competition made up of 24 wildly varied challenges.

Animal Planet's frightening success with such series as "River Monsters," ''Finding Bigfoot," ''Call of the Wildman" and "Gator Boys" has inspired a full-out network event. Scheduled for May 21-28, Monster Week will gather new episodes of all these shows. It will also present the hunt for a 20-foot "Man-Eating Super Croc" and premiere "Mermaids: The Body Found," a two-hour exploration that supports the existence of mermaids and even display (with the help of CGI) how they might really appear.