Raymond Paul "Ray" Mears (born 7 February 1964) is a British woodsman, instructor, author and TV presenter. His appearances on TV cover the subject of bushcraft and survival techniques, and he is best known for the TV series Ray Mears' Bushcraft, Ray Mears' World of Survival, Extreme Survival, Survival with Ray Mears and Ray Mears Goes Walkabout.
Mears grew up in Kenley, Greater London, and the North Downs, where he discovered a countryside abundant with wildlife. Educated at Reigate Grammar School, a co-educational independent school in Reigate, Surrey, he learned to track foxes in the forest at a young age. As a boy, he desired to sleep out on the trail, but unable to afford camping equipment, he resorted to setting up camp using what he could find in his surroundings.
His enthusiasm for his subject, combined with his broad knowledge of survival and the uses which may be made of plants, trees and other natural materials found in woodland, forest or desert, have made him a popular figure in TV broadcasting in the UK and endeared him to various generations of lovers of the outdoors. He has travelled extensively across the world for his TV series and is always willing to learn survival techniques from the indigenous peoples he meets. His knowledge of the wild and his ability to teach others how to find food from seeds, berries, roots and other growing things, and to survive by constructing temporary shelters, fires and canoes from natural materials, have earned his programmes a wide viewing public.
Mears is particularly interested in the survival of groups of resistance fighters and partisans for extended periods during the Second World War, such as the Norwegian heavy water plant saboteurs (see The Real Heroes of Telemark) and the Bielski brothers in Belarus (see Extreme Survival). In a 2006 TV tribute to fellow BBC broadcaster David Attenborough, Ray Mears stated that much of his passion for his subject was fostered by Attenborough's nature documentaries.
Mears met his long term partner, Rachel, in 1992 when she attended one of his five day survival courses. The couple lived in East Sussex with Rachel's two grown children, and married in 2005, after Rachel was diagnosed with breast cancer. Rachel succumbed to the cancer in 2006, aged 50, and her ashes are scattered in the Ashdown forest near their home.
In 2005, Mears was a passenger in a serious helicopter accident while filming one of his documentaries in Wyoming. The helicopter in which he was travelling with his camera crew struck the ground during a steep low level turn, and broke apart, rolling to a stop. The fuel tank was ruptured in the accident, and escaping fuel covered Mears and the crew. No fire occurred, and Mears was able to escape the wreckage and assist in the rescue and first aid of one of the crew who was badly injured. Mears escaped uninjured.
Ray Mears started up his bushcraft company at age 19. Mears' first book, The Survival Handbook, was published in 1990, and his first TV appearance was in 1993 in the BBC2 series Tracks. In the 2007 TV series Wild Food, Mears collaborated with Gordon Hillman, Professor of Archaeobotany in University College London.
In September 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University, and in the same year he delivered a series of public lectures across the United Kingdom on his experiences in front of and behind the lens.
Recently, Mears and his Course Director Paul Kirtley devised a demanding testing process for senior field staff. Quartermaster James Bath and Field Instructor Dan Hume are the first candidates to successfully complete the Fundamental Instructor assessment. Both are the proud recipients of the "Woodlore" antler-handled knife, and join a select group of Field Instructors who have received this honour in the past
In July 2010, Mears was asked by Northumbria Police to help them track fugitive killer Raoul Thomas Moat, after he fled his temporary tent-based shelter in the village of Rothbury.
Mears has made a number of series for BBC television, visiting various parts of the world and covering such topics as bushcraft and survival skills, the traditional culture of indigenous peoples, and the achievements of noted explorers.
In 2009 he was approached by ITV to present a planned revival of its long-running nature documentary series Survival. The resulting three-part series was rebranded Survival with Ray Mears and broadcast on ITV1 in 2010. Each episode followed Mears as he used his tracking skills to locate bears, wolves and leopards. In a Radio Times interview to promote the series, Mears complained of being typecast by the BBC.
Series
Wild Tracks (BBC, 1994)
Tracks (BBC, 1994—97)
Ray Mears' World of Survival (BBC and Discovery Civilization Channel, 1997—98, 2 seasons of 6 episodes each)
Ray Mears' Country Tracks (BBC, 1998, 2002—03)
The Essential Guide to Rocks (BBC Education, 1998)
Ray Mears' Extreme Survival (BBC, 1999—2002, 3 seasons of 6 episodes each)
Ray Mears' Adventure Special (BBC, 2001) — Mears takes Ewan McGregor into the Honduran jungle on the trail of the prehistoric people of the Mosquito Coast.
Ray Mears' Real Heroes of Telemark (BBC, 2003)
Ray Mears' Bushcraft (BBC, 2004—05, 2 seasons of 5 episodes each)
Ray Mears' Wild Food (BBC, 2007)
Ray Mears Goes Walkabout (BBC Two, June 2008, 4 episodes) — Mears tours the Australian outback. An accompanying hardcover book was published in the UK by Hodder and Stoughton in March 2008. In the series Mears meets one of his heroes: Les Hiddins (aka "The Bush Tucker Man").
Ray Mears' Northern Wilderness (BBC Two, autumn 2009, 6 episodes) — Mears follows in the footsteps of pioneers who opened up Canada, such as Samuel Hearne, John Rae and David Thompson.
Survival with Ray Mears (ITV, April/May 2010, 3 episodes)
