John Varty | |
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Born | [1] Johannesburg, South Africa | 27 November 1950
Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, conservationist |
Spouse | Gillian van Houten (TV news anchor) (m. 1995) |
Children | 3 [1] |
Website | johnvarty |
John Varty (born 27 November 1950) is a South African wildlife filmmaker [3] who has made more than 30 documentaries and one feature film. Varty is also leading a controversial project which aims to create a free-ranging, self-sustaining tiger population outside of Asia. [4]
Varty attended Parktown Boys' High School in Johannesburg. As a child, John learned about hunting [5] on the family game farm near the Kruger National Park.
After his father, Charles, died, John and his brother, Dave Varty, terminated the hunting activities and converted it into a game reserve in 1973. [6] They renamed it Londolozi, which is the Zulu word for "protector of living things". Since then it has become one of the top resorts in the world and was included in Travel and Leisure's world's best 4 times in the late 90s and early 2000s. [7] [8]
Varty made several documentaries that were widely distributed: Living with Tigers , Shingalana, [9] Jamu, the Orphaned Leopard. [10] Swift and silent won an American Cable TV award in 1993 [11] and The Silent Hunter won The New York Gold Award. [12]
In 1992, he wrote, produced and starred in Running Wild , a feature film starring Brooke Shields. [13]
In 2011, Varty starred in Leopard Queen, a documentary about a leopard he has filmed for 17 years. [14]
In 2000, Varty started a Bengal tiger re-wilding project near Philippolis in the Free State. [15] Starting with captive bred tigers, the aim is to establish a wild tiger population outside of Asia. In 2003, the progress was documented in a The Discovery Channel production called Living with Tigers . In 2011, National Geographic made a second documentary called Tiger Man of Africa. [16]
The project was the subject of controversy after accusations by investors and conservationists of manipulating the behaviour of the tigers for the purpose of the production of the film Living with Tigers , with the tigers believed to be unable to hunt. [17] [18] [19] Stuart Bray, who had originally invested a large sum of money in the project, claimed that he and his wife, Li Quan, watched the film crew "[chase] the prey up against the fence and into the path of the tigers just for the sake of dramatic footage." [17] [18] [19] Quan and Bray also accused them of financial mismanagement after a legal audit uncovered that he had borrowed R5.7-million of the funds for extraneous and personal expenses. [20] Quan and Bray subsequently established the Save China's Tigers Laohu Valley Reserve, also near Philippolis.
Moreover, scientists have also established that the tigers are not genetically pure, which would imply that the project has no conservation value. [21]
On 29 March 2012, Varty was critically injured when one of his tigers attacked him on his farm near Philippolis. He suffered multiple injures and puncture wounds all over his body. [22] He spent approximately one month in hospital. [23]
In January 2014, KIA South Africa released a TV commercial, Tiger in Africa, with Varty's footage shot at Tiger Canyons. [24]
In 2019, Getaway reported there were 18 Bengal tigers at Tiger Canyon. [25]
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The Bengal tiger or Royal Bengal tiger is a population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is estimated to have been present in the Indian subcontinent since the Late Pleistocene for about 12,000 to 16,500 years. Its historical range covered the Indus River valley until the early 19th century, almost all of India, western Pakistan, southern Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and southwestern China. Today, it inhabits India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and southwestern China. It is threatened by poaching, habitat loss and habitat fragmentation.
Phinda Private Game Reserve, formerly known as Phinda Resource Reserve, is a 170 km2 (66 sq mi) private game reserve situated in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, between the Mkuze Game Reserve and the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park. Designated in 1990, Phinda is derived from a Zulu phrase "Phinda Izilwane" meaning 'return of wildlife', or more accurately 'do again'.
The South China tiger is a population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies that is native to southern China. The population mainly inhabited the Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the China's Red List of Vertebrates and is possibly extinct in the wild since no wild individual has been recorded since the late 1980s. In the late 1990s, continued survival was considered unlikely because of low prey density, widespread habitat degradation and fragmentation, and other environmental issues in China. In the fur trade, it used to be called Amoy tiger.
Save China's Tigers (SCT) is an international charitable foundation based in Hong Kong, the United States, and the United Kingdom that aims to save the big cats of China from extinction. It focuses on the Chinese tigers. It also has other branches in Mainland China and South Africa.
Dave Salmoni is a Canadian animal trainer, entertainer and television producer. He has his own production company, Triosphere, which is based in South Africa and specializes in wildlife films. Dave has dedicated his life to animal conservation.
The Indian leopard is a subspecies of the leopard widely distributed on the Indian subcontinent. It is threatened by illegal trade of skins and body parts, and persecution due to human-leopard conflict and retaliation for livestock depredation.
Alan Robert Rabinowitz was an American zoologist who served as the president, CEO, and chief scientist at Panthera Corporation, a nonprofit conservation organization devoted to protecting the world's 40 wild cat species. Called the "Indiana Jones of Wildlife Protection" by Time, he studied jaguars, clouded leopards, Asiatic leopards, tigers, Sumatran rhinos, bears, leopard cats, raccoons, cervidae, and civets.
Kunwar "Billy" Arjan Singh was an Indian hunter turned conservationist and author. He was the first who tried to reintroduce tigers and leopards from captivity into the wild.
Eye of the Leopard is a 2006 National Geographic documentary directed by Dereck and Beverly Joubert. Set in the Mombo region of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, the film explores the life of a female leopard, Legadema, as she matures from a cub to an adult. Jeremy Irons, voice actor of Scar from Disney's 1994 animation The Lion King, narrates the film. It premiered in the US on the National Geographic Channel on October 8, 2006, and has won many awards including the BBC wildscreen Panda award for Best Sound Wild Screen and an Emmy. Since the success of the film, a book and an app of the same title have been released.
Running Wild is a 1995 film starring Brooke Shields, Martin Sheen and David Keith. It was written by Andrea Buck, Dee McLachlan and John Varty.
Living with Tigers is a 2003 documentary about tigers in Africa. It aired on Discovery.
Anthony Raymond Fitzjohn, OBE was a British conservationist who worked extensively with George Adamson at Kora in Africa. In recognition of his service to wildlife conservation, Fitzjohn was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.
Gordon John Buchanan is a Scottish wildlife cameraman, filmmaker and presenter. His work includes the nature documentaries Tribes, Predators & Me, The Polar Bear Family & Me and Life in the Snow.
The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) was founded in 1994 by Belinda Wright, its Executive Director, who was an award-winning wildlife photographer and filmmaker till she took up the cause of conservation. From its inception, WPSI's main aim has been to bring a new focus to the daunting task of tackling India's growing wildlife crisis. It does this by providing support and information to government authorities to combat poaching and the escalating illegal wildlife trade - particularly in wild tigers. It has now broadened its focus to deal with human-animal conflicts and provide support for research projects.
Panthera Corporation, or Panthera, is a charitable organization devoted to preserving wild cats and their ecosystems around the globe. Founded in 2006, Panthera is devoted to the conservation of the world’s 40 species of wild cats and the vast ecosystems they inhabit. Their team of biologists, data scientists, law enforcement experts and wild cat advocates studies and protects the seven species of big cats: cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, lions, pumas, snow leopards and tigers. Panthera also creates targeted conservation strategies for the world’s most threatened and overlooked small cats, such as fishing cats, ocelots and Andean cats. The organization has offices in New York City and Europe, as well as offices in Mesoamerica, South America, Africa and Asia.
Sabi Sand Game Reserve is located adjacent to the Kruger National Park in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga, South Africa. Officially named Sabi Sand Wildtuin, the Sabi Sand Game Reserve consists of a group of private game reserves. The Newington Gate is at 24°52′9″S31°24′16″E and west of the Kruger Gate and Skukuza camp of Kruger Park. Other entrances are Gowrie Gate in the far north and Shaws Gate in the south.
The Laohu Valley Reserve (LVR) is a nature reserve located near Philippolis in the Free State and near Vanderkloof Dam in the Northern Cape of South Africa. It is a roughly 350-square-kilometre private reserve.
Li Quan is a Beijing-born wildlife conservationist who lives in London.
Steven R. Galster is an American environmental and human rights investigator and counter-trafficking program designer. Since 1987, he has planned and participated in investigations and remedial programs to stop wildlife and human trafficking and to mitigate corruption and build governance in Asia, Africa, Russia, South America, and the USA.
Don Clarke is a South African singer-songwriter, also known as The Songteller. Clarke is notable for his music contribution to South African culture with songs that celebrate South African sport, tell the story of heroes and support social issues.