Pocatello native and survival TV show veteran Jeff Zausch is taking on yet another challenge as a contestant on a new show, “Snake in the Grass.”
In “Snake in the Grass,” Zausch puts his survival skills to the test again, working with three other contestants to survive in the Costa Rican jungle for 36 hours while competing in a series of challenges together.
One person among the four contestants is the “snake,” and the snake tries to secretly sabotage the group without being detected as the snake. At the end of the episode, the contestants will try to guess who the snake is. Whoever guesses correctly wins the $100,000 cash prize, and if no one guesses correctly, the snake wins the money.
Zausch has been on the show “Naked and Afraid” six times and has survived more days on the show than any other contestant. He said he’s regularly approached by survival and reality show producers, but he typically turns them down because he’s not in it just to be on TV. He’s in it for a challenge, and “Snake in the Grass” met that criterion for him.
“I’m very selective with the shows I go on. To this day, the only shows I’ve ever been on are ‘Naked and Afraid’ and I was a host on the series ‘Dual Survival’ on Discovery Channel,” he said. “So, for me to take on this challenge should really tell the fans something about this new show that it met the merits of being something incredibly difficult to do.”
Zausch said despite the Costa Rican jungle being on par with the most difficult terrain he’s ever spent time in, he wasn’t worried about surviving there for 36 hours. It was the social aspect of the show that got him interested in participating and ultimately proved to be a challenge.
“In addition to the survival challenge, the social challenges have always been the most difficult things for me to overcome,” he said. “I’m known as kind of the cutthroat person on ‘Naked and Afraid,’ so the challenge of the social aspect is what drew me to the show.”
Zausch will be on the show with three past contestants from the show “Survivor.” Two of the people have won the $1 million prize from the popular survival show, he said.
Zausch’s episode will be the first to air in the series. He said that’s a sign that it “must be a good episode.” The series will premiere on USA Network on Aug. 1, and will air weekly after that, with new contestants on each episode.