Dave Salmoni was born on September 4, 1975, in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. He attended Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, where he studied zoology and wrote his undergraduate thesis on black bear hibernation. He began his animal training apprenticeship at Bowmanville Zoological Park in 1998 and, in August 1999, was severely mauled by a 500-pound male African lion named Bongo. This encounter later inspired his documentary After the Attack.

In 2000, Salmoni traveled to South Africa as part of a Bengal tiger rewilding project with filmmaker John Varty, work that formed the basis of his television debut in the Discovery Channel documentary Living with Tigers in 2003. He followed with a string of Discovery and Animal Planet series, including Animal Face-Off (2004), Rogue Nature (2007), Into the Pride (2009), and After the Attack (2008). 

Salmoni expanded beyond wildlife with Expedition Impossible on ABC in 2011, a Mark Burnett adventure series set in Morocco. He later hosted Pet Nation Renovation on Animal Planet (2016–2017) and Deadly Islands (2014). As of 2025, he resides in Toronto’s Wychwood Park neighborhood and is pursuing a PhD in animal behavior and conservation.