John H. Sparks

John Herbert Sparks (born April 23, 1939 in Colchester , Essex , England ) is an English zoologist, television producer for nature documentaries, author and lecturer. He is a scientific member of the Zoological Society of London (FZS) and the Linnean Society of London (FLS).

Life

After a long-term study on the social behavior of tiger finch Sparks was in 1964 with the dissertation Ethology of the red avadavat with Particular reference to social and sexual behavior at Queen Mary College of the University of London for Ph.D. PhD. He then became a research fellow in the Ethology Laboratory at London Zoo , created by Desmond Morris , where he studied the social behavior of birds, rodents and monkeys. In 1965 Sparks became an employee of the Natural History Unit (department for nature documentaries) of the BBC in Bristol, where he initially produced radio programs. In 1968 he switched to television, where he was involved in numerous nature documentaries as an author, producer and editor. These included films such as Seabird City (pilot of the Soper at Large series , 1972), Animal Design (1972), Natural Bleak (1973) and The Discovery of Animal Behavior (1982). In 1979 he produced the episodes The Infinity Variety , Victors of the Dry Land , The Rise of the Mammals and Life in the Trees of the 13-part nature documentary Life on Earth (German: Planet Earth - Life on our Earth ) by David Attenborough . In the latter film, Attenborough has an encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda , which is one of the most popular scenes in the series and which Sparks did not want to shoot at first because they reminded him too much of the television series Animal Magic (1962–1984, with Tony Soper and Johnny Morris ) remembered. For Life on Earth , producers Sparks, Christopher Parsons and Richard Brock were nominated for the British Academy Television Award in 1980 in the category Best Documentary Series. From 1983 to 1988 Sparks was head of the Natural History Unit. Together with Nigel Marven , Sparks produced the six-part documentary Realms of the Russian Bear , which was broadcast in 1992 as part of the Nature documentary series and was awarded at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in 1993.

Since 1998 Sparks has worked as a trustee for the conservation organization The Gaia Trust .

Works (selection)

1968: Penguins (with Tony Soper)
1969: Bird Behavior (German: birds and their behavior, Delphin Verlag, 1969)
1972: The Treasury of Birds (with John A. Burton, Malcolm Ellis, Ian Prestt, David Saunders, Karen Eastman, and Whitney Eastman)
1973: Animals in Danger (German: Threatened Animal World, Delphin Verlag, 1973)
1975: Owls: Their Natural and Unnatural History (with Tony Soper)
1975: The Living Earth: The Air Around us
1976: Worlds Apart: Nature in Cities and Islands (with John A. Burton)
1976: The Living Earth: Island life
1977: The Sexual Connection: Mating the Wild Way
1982: The Discovery of Animal Behavior
1990: Parrots: A Natural History (with Tony Soper)
1992: Realms of the Russian Bear (German: In the empire of the Russian bear: a natural history of Russia and the Central Asian republics, Egmont vgs Verlagsgesell., 1993)
1998: Battle of the Sexes - The Natural History of Sex

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Anita Singh: How the Life on Earth team nearly missed its best-loved scene In: The Daily Telegraph, April 19, 2014, accessed May 30, 2016.

personal data
SURNAME	Sparks, John H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sparks, John Herbert (full name); Sparks, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British zoologist, television producer and author
DATE OF BIRTH	April 23, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH	Colchester , Essex , England

[1] Anita Singh: How the Life on Earth team nearly missed its best-loved scene In: The Daily Telegraph, April 19, 2014, accessed May 30, 2016.