John Varty
| John Varty | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Varty 27 November 1950 Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Occupation | Film maker, conservationist |
| Spouse(s) | Gillian van Houten (TV news anchor) (m. 1995) |
| Children | 3: Daughter Savannah and twin boys, Sean and Tao. |
| Website | www.tigercanyons.co.za |
John Varty (born 27 November 1950) is a South African wildlife filmmaker 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.
John Varty attended Parktown Boys' High School in Johannesburg. As a child, John learned about hunting 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. 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 for 4 of the last 5 years.
John made several documentaries that were widely distributed: Living with Tigers, Shingalana,Jamu, the Orphaned Leopard.Swift and silent won an American Cable TV award in 1993 and The Silent Hunter won The New York Gold Award.
In 2011, John Varty starred in Leopard Queen, a documentary about a leopard he has filmed for 17 years.
He also wrote, produced and starred in Running Wild a feature film starring Brooke Shields.
In 2000, John started a Bengal tiger re-wilding project near Philippolis in the Free State. 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.
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