TV wildlife star: I'll cut globe-trotting for my baby's sake

His work presenting nature documentaries around the world has seen him likened to David Attenborough.

But Monty Halls told today how the birth of his first child has led to him scaling back his globe-trotting exploits that have made the former Royal Marines officer the latest star of the BBC's natural history unit.

After presenting a new BBC2 series on the Great Barrier Reef he will next week move to Devon with girlfriend Tamsyn Smith and their one-month-old daughter Isla Grace.

Halls, 45, admits his expeditions around the world brought about the end of two previous relationships. Ms Smith, 32, his partner of two-and-a-half years, has followed him to locations including Cornwall and the Outer Hebrides.

They now plan to set up a business offering wildlife tours and photography.

Halls, who was plucked from obscurity to film BBC2's Monty Halls' Great Escape, in 2009, said: "The long-term plan is to get the base up and running. If the work keeps coming in I will do it but there is the definite pressure of having Isla Grace. I want to watch my daughter grow up. There are a lot of people who don't get that opportunity.

"The days of me going away for six months in a row are gone. There is a certain amount of commitment that is required but we have a little one now and we have to manage that."

The couple, whose daughter was born at their current base in Cornwall, met while working for The Underwater Channel. Ms Smith left her home in Putney and job at the BBC's Wildlife Fund in White City in 2010 to be with him as he filmed in Ireland.

Halls's latest show sees him trace the 133,000 square mile Great Barrier Reef and find the world's largest green turtle. His work for the BBC, Discovery Channel and Channel 4 saw him described as the "action man David Attenborough" by one newspaper.

But he said: "He is a one-off and a true legend of broadcasting."

Great Barrier Reef is at 8pm on Sunday on BBC2.