Death of wildlife filmmaker Alan Root

[DesertRhino150]

I have just heard the news that Alan Root, one of the great wildlife filmmakers, died on Saturday 26th August in Kenya at the age of 80.

Alan Root, Oft-Bitten Wildlife Filmmaker, Dies at 80

Over the course of his career he survived being bitten by a hippopotamus, a silverback gorilla, a leopard and a puff adder, filmed extremely rarely-seen and elusive species such as aquatic genet, giant otter shrew and water chevrotain and was nominated for an Oscar for one of his films (Castles of Clay, attached at the end of the post).

Something of special relevance to the zoo community was his direct role in capturing the founder population of the Eastern bongo which has gone on to become a flourishing species in captivity and may yet provide animals for reintroduction.

Castles of Clay : Root, Alan : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

 

[Carl Jones]

This is awful news. I met Alan on a few occasions and he was a most charming and modest man who had tremendous field skills, and was also good with captive animals, and well known for having free- ranging tame animals around his home. He was a great film maker and also a great animal person. He inspired a whole generation of wildlife biologists and conservationists with his wonderful films. His wife Fran was a colleague at Jersey Zoo. Thinking of his family at this difficult time.