DO YOU SMELL A RAT? ANIMAL PLANET SNIFFS OUT A SLEW OF THEM IN "RAT BUSTERS NYC"

- New Series Follows New York's Most Tenacious Exterminating Duo -

(New York, NY) - This summer, Animal Planet is taking Manhattan - and its surrounding boroughs - on a mad scour of the city's most plaguing pest problems. In RAT BUSTERS NYC, New York's finest and most entertaining exterminators, Jimmy Tallman and Michael Morales of Magic Exterminating (a New York City and Long Island based company) invite cameras to see just what's 'rat'tling New Yorkers. These Brooklyn-born pest experts strip away the city's protective veil as they bring the reality of the army of vermin that are a part of The Big Apple's immense population to light - and they're everywhere - from warehouses and small businesses to apartments and single-family homes, from the Upper East Side to Tribeca and crawling all over Brooklyn and Queens!

Beginning Friday, August 26, at 10 PM et/pt, six hour-long episodes of RAT BUSTERS NYC follow service managers Jimmy and Michael, a comedic dynamic duo with a brother-like kinship, as they tackle rat families bigger than their own, and other metropolitan pests like roaches, mice, bedbugs, raccoons and pigeons.

"Michael and I are constantly getting down and dirty searching for pests people don't want to see or touch," says Jimmy. "You'd expect to find rats, raccoons and bedbugs in the filthiest of places, but in this city they're everywhere - suburban neighborhoods, city high rises and office buildings, and everywhere in between! We're the last line of defense against unwanted roommates that don't pay rent."

New York spans more than 300 square miles and is inhabited by more than eight million people, but because it's also home to too many rats to count, Jimmy and Michael are always hot on the tail of a case, so to speak! In Brooklyn, a massive cannibal rat attacks an employee and threatens to overrun a warehouse with its offspring. When called to investigate, the RAT BUSTERS soon realize that this mutant rodent might be the biggest catch of their careers. In a cluttered basement in Queens, Jimmy and Michael try to help a woman whose house is such a mess, she lost her seven-foot pet python somewhere in the chaos, and now is overrun with mice. In another part of Queens, pigeons have made themselves at home in a family's soffit - these unhealthy birds are literally nesting and living in the walls and the owners are afraid they'll soon take over the entire house.

"This job is never easy," says Michael. "Jimmy and I have to be one step ahead of our catch. We always say we have to think like rats. It can sometimes take months to eradicate a pest problem, so we're always rolling with the punches and coming up with new tactics to come out ahead."

RAT BUSTERS NYC is produced by Optomen Productions for Animal Planet. Steve McLaughlin, Nicola Moody and Dominic Stobart are executive producers for Optomen Productions. Erin Wanner is executive producer for Animal Planet. Vice president of development is Charlie Foley.

Animal Planet Media (APM), a multi-media business unit of Discovery Communications, is the world's only entertainment brand that immerses viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep content via multiple platforms and offers animal lovers and pet owners access to a centralized online, television and mobile community for immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment, information and enrichment. APM consists of the Animal Planet television network, available in more than 97 million homes in the US; online assets www.animalplanet.com, the ultimate online destination for all things animal; the 24/7 broadband channel, Animal Planet Beyond; Petfinder.com, the #1 pet-related Web property globally that facilitates pet adoption; and other media platforms including a robust Video-on-Demand (VOD) service; mobile content; and merchandising extensions.