For Ernie Dingo, the chance to host Seven's new series Outback Wildlife Rescue was more than just a job - it allowed him to combine three of his great passions.
The actor, who is a long-time presenter on The Great Outdoors, said he jumped at the chance to travel around the country trying to help wild animals in peril.
"I loved it because of the fact that it's quite a big cross-promotion of what I love doing," Dingo told AAP.
"I love the outback, I love animals and I love fixing them up, and also I love my tourism."
Outback Wildlife Rescue follows on from Seven's ratings winner RSPCA Animal Rescue, narrated by Blue Wiggle Anthony Field.
It takes the format out of the suburbs and into the outback, where animals like a thorny-devil lizard, a sugar glider, kangaroos, koalas and snakes are in trouble.
Having grown up on a cattle station in remote Western Australia, 52-year-old Dingo said he had always been surrounded by animals and they had taught him a lot.
"As a kid with all the joeys and the lambs and the calves and the little birds, I've learnt a lot about myself," he said.
"I've listened to sounds of birds in the morning, I've listened to the same birds at different times of the day with different calls and different meanings - knowing when there's danger, knowing when someone's lost.
"You can listen to it all and it teaches me about my senses."
The series also highlights the work of volunteers across the country who give up their time and often their own resources to help injured wildlife.
Dingo said showing kindness and decency towards animals was about respecting yourself, as well as them.
"If you drive past a school and one of the kids was hit by a car, you will go out of your way to see if there is anything you can do to help," Dingo said.
"But if you see an animal that's got hit by a car, there's a different feeling, it's `ew, yuck, ew bloody thing dented my car, mongrel', and you leave the carcass there and then the predators that come looking for a free feed can also become a statistic.
"So if you've got all these plastic bags in your car use them as a bloody glove to drag the animals off the road if they're dead. If they're injured take them to a vet.
"If you don't want to do it you can be a mongrel if you want."
Dingo said he hoped Outback Wildlife Rescue encouraged people to take more care when it came to the living world around them.
"What I do hope is that people will have respect for themselves and have some sort of belief that they can make a difference," he said.
Outback Wildlife Rescue premieres on Sunday at 6.30pm on Seven.
