Bengt Berg (ornithologist)

Bengt Magnus Kristoffer Berg (9 January 1885 – 31 July 1967) was a Swedish ornithologist, zoologist, wildlife photographer, and writer.

Bengt Berg
Born9 January 1885
Kalmar, Småland, Sweden
Died31 July 1967
Halltorp, Kalmar, Sweden

Berg was one of the world’s first nature filmmakers of the Scandinavian film industry who took different types of photographs. Noted as a nature documentarian, in 1910 at the Victoria-Theater in Berlin, the largest "cinema theatre", he would provide live commentary about his work to the audience from a speaker's chair as his silent films were played. The theatre had a full house (2600 people each show) twice a day, everyday, for a consecutive period of four months.

Berg was also the author of almost 30 books, which were translated into 16 different languages. His books were full of wildlife photographs with humorous stories from Sweden, Africa, India, Bhutan, and the Himalayas. He was also a vivid debater of various subjects, such as birds, flora, and fauna, as well as a hunter and a believer in a peaceful life amongst other animals. Bengt Berg's photography of avifauna was highly celebrated,[1] and he is credited with the saving of the sea eagle, greylag goose, golden eagle, and mute swan of Sweden. He was also the first to film the shoebill stork in South Sudan in the early 1920s. Also during the 1920s, he followed the common cranes from Europe to learn about their migratory route to Africa. In 1930, he photographed the bearded vulture in the Himalayas from a balloon basket fastened to a very long rope.

Berg and his wife would position themselves precariously at great heights to get clear photographs of the birds inside their caves on the walls of cliffs. At home in Sweden, he was deeply involved in fencing private lands to protect and study the habits of red deer. Traveling around the globe also gave him the opportunity to film, photograph, and write about mammals such as elephants in Africa as well as tigers and rhinoceros in India. It was through his 1932 book on the Indian rhinoceros that he brought global attention to the fact that the rhinoceros were being massacred due to the demand for rhinoceros horn in China.

Some thought of him as having been far too critical of humans and claimed that he loved other species more than his own. Berg is reported to have written not long before he died "Do not judge me on my person, but on the work I have done here." On 31 July 1967, at the age of 82, he died from a stroke while swimming within the confinements of his estate in Eriksberg, Blekinge, Sweden. He is best remembered for the many travel books he wrote, his photographs, and his films of nature capturing Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Selected works (in German)
  • Abu Markab. Mit der Filmkamera unter Elefanten und Riesenstörchen. Reimer, Berlin 1920
  • Arizona Charlie's Junge. Verlag Putty, Wuppertal 1954
  • Der Lammergeier im Himalaja. Antigone-Verlag, Allendorf/Eder 2006, ISBN 3-929987-36-8
  • Die letzten Adler. Reimer, Berlin 1943
  • Die Liebesgeschichte einer Wildgans. Reimer,231 the world of destroyed 1949
  • Mein Freund, der Regenpfeifer. Antigone-Verlag, Allendorf/Eder 2003, ISBN 3-921755-78-6
  • Meine Jagd Nach dem Einhorn. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt/M. 1933
  • Mit den Zugvögeln nach Africa. Antigone-Verlag, Allendorf (Eder) 2001, ISBN 3-929987-28-7
  • Tiger und Mensch. Limpert-Verlag, Frankfurt/M. 1958

References
  1. University, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm. "The Cinematic Fauna of Bengt Berg". research.ims.su.se. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
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