| Nigel Marven | |
|---|---|
Nigel Marven at the Webosaurs official launch in Dallas (2009) |
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| Born | 27 November 1960 United Kingdom |
| Occupation | television presenter of nature documentary |
| Spouse | Gill Marven |
| Website | |
| http://www.nigelmarven.com/ | |
Nigel Marven (United Kingdom, 27 November 1960) is a British wildlife presenter, television producer, author, and ornithologist.
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Marven studied botany at Bristol University until the age of 22 when he left to begin his career at the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol. Over the following years he worked firstly as a wildlife documentary researcher for such programmes as My Family and Other Animals then went on to produce such series as The Land of the Russian Bear. He enjoyed a 12-year professional collaboration with David Attenborough whom he holds in high esteem. In 1998, he moved to ITV where, to his surprise, he found himself being asked to present wildlife documentaries as well as producing them.
He is known for his unorthodox, spontaneous, and daring style of presenting wildlife documentaries as well as for including factual knowledge into the proceedings. This has led some people to compare him to Steve Irwin. In his first television series for ITV, Giants, he swam with a great white shark without the protection of a cage. Other scenes included him having a goliath birdeater spider, arguably the largest spider in the world, walk over his face, and grappling with a fifteen-foot rock python deep in its underground lair. This style of presenting has won him many viewers to his succeeding series and to date he has presented 21 wildlife series for TV.
In 2003 the Impossible Pictures production company asked him to present in the Walking with Dinosaurs episodes Chased by Dinosaurs: The Giant Claw & Land Of Giants, and then Sea Monsters. Then he moved on to Prehistoric Park on ITV, a fictional series about travelling back in time to rescue examples of extinct creatures such as a Tyrannosaurus, Woolly Mammoth, Arthropleura and other prehistoric animals. 2009 saw Nigel feature in season 3, episode 4 of hit action drama Primeval, where he is seen playing with a baby Velociraptor before encountering a Giganotosaurus. Both of these series were also made by Impossible Pictures.
During a simulated prehistoric mammal encounter in Prehistoric Park, Marven declared himself a 'vegetarian'. Throughout the series he applies the same term to naturally herbivorous animals. In December 2007 his latest series Polar Bear Adventures with Nigel Marven appeared on Channel Five.
Nigel Marven ran the 2008 London marathon in 4 hours 4 minutes to try to raise £20,000 for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society UK.[1]