Mr Peter Flack in his book, "Heart of an African Hunter," made an interesting, although short, comment on Mr Varty.

I stayed at Varty's Londolozi resort and interviewed him during my first trip to Africa in 1983. At the time, the resort was catering to both tourists and hunters, and the two groups came together only at dinnertime. Don't know if that still is true.

I haven't seen what Peter wrote, but I was impressed with Varty's dream to remove the fences in the Sabi Sand and elsewhere and allow wildlife to move in and out of Kruger and other national parks. He also spoke against having non-indigenous animals and plants on the land.

His raising tigers in South Africa doesn't sound like something the man I met briefly would do, but people do change.

Bill Quimby

I liked him better filming leopards in the 80's.

quote:

Originally posted by BNagel:
I liked him better filming leopards in the 80's.

Gosh yes. Especially when the leopard is filmed stalking and bringing down an impala ewe in thick green lush grass, then leaping from dry winter grass into a tree, and I'll be damned, the impala has morphed from a ewe into a ram. Truth be stranger than fiction. I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen on TV.

I saw a National Geographic video of a cheetah stalking an Thomson gazelle.

It started chasing it, then they disappeared behind a bush, and as the cheetah appeared on the other side of the bush, it had a reedbuck by the throat!

Beat that if you can

Lots of editing (and editorial license?) on wildlife shows of all types. Basically there is a story line chosen and the jackal/impala/cheetah/whatever might not be the actual individual "followed" in the story. However, swapping species is too much of a stretch. I just like seeing the animals, particularly big cats. Tigers in Africa -- we have lots of Africa, China, India and so on in Texas...

Just heard Mr. Varty is in a stable condition and they are waiting to see if infection is going to set in.
He is "recovering nicely" according to doctors and the injuries are not as bad as initially thought.

Its called BLACK magic

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I saw a National Geographic video of a cheetah stalking an Thomson gazelle.

It started chasing it, then they disappeared behind a bush, and as the cheetah appeared on the other side of the bush, it had a reedbuck by the throat!

Beat that if you can