Jonathan Scott

Jonathan Scott "was born in London in 1949 and brought up on a farm in Berkshire. He attended Christ's Hospital school in Sussex before gaining a BSc Honours degree (2:1) in Zoology from Queen's University, Belfast, in Northern Ireland, in 1972. After a year in the US, in 1974 Jonathan traveled overland from London to South Africa followed by two years in Botswana.

"Jonathan has lived in Kenya since 1977, and was based at Mara River Camp just outside the northern boundary of the Masai Mara National Game Reserve from 1977 to 1981. In those early years Jonathan acted as a guide and naturalists for visitors to the camp, gradually getting to know the best places to look for wildlife, particularly the big cats that had always fascinated him, refining his skills as a wildlife illustrator. He always loved to sketch and over the years has successfully published limited edition prints of his pen and ink drawings.

"Jonathan's first book entitled A Souvenir Guide to African Birds was published in 1981. The following year he produced The Marsh Lions (co-authored with Brian Jackman), an intimate portrait of the life of an African pride, introducing many of the other animal characters which would feature in his later books - leopards, wild dogs and the wildebeest migration. BBC Wildlife on One documentary entitled Ambush at Masai Mara featured the story of the Marsh Lions based on Jonathan's work, which was also featured in 1985 in the Nature Watch series presented by Julian Pettifer. In 1981 Jonathan moved to Kichwa Tembo tented camp on the other side of the Mara River where he spent the next ten years.

"Between 1982 and 1984, Jonathan traveled to Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia as a co-presenter for the popular American television series Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. In 1985 authored and illustrated The Leopard's Tale, the first detailed account of a wild leopard and her cubs, providing a unique insight into the life of this enigmatic predator. Between 1986 and 1988 Jonathan spent months at a time living in the Serengeti, often sleeping in his car so that he could follow the great wildebeest migration on its annual journey between the southern Serengeti's short grass plains and their dry season refuge in the Masai Mara. During this period he wrote two books - The Great Migration and Painted Wolves: Wild Dogs Of The Serengeti-Mara, and in 1987 was judged the overall winner in the Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award for his photograph of a wild dog catching a wildebeest."

Jonathan and his wife Angie "are UK Patrons of the Galapagos Wildlife Trust, and Jonathan is UK Patron of the Rhino Ark, the Cheetah Conservation Fund, and the Simeon Trust, as well as serving for many years on the Editorial Board of the East African Wildlife Society, and the Conservation Board of Friends of Conservation. He is a member of the African Lion Working Group – affiliated to the IUCN Cat Specialist Group."