Ben Cropp

Benjamin 'Ben' Cropp AM (born 7 January 1936) is an Australian documentary filmmaker, conservationist and a former Open Australian spearfishing champion. Formerly a shark hunter Cropp retired from that trade in 1962 to pursue oceanic documentary filmmaking (having produced some 150 wildlife documentaries) and conservation efforts. One of his efforts for The Disney Channel, The Young Adventurers, was nominated for an Emmy award.

Cropp was born on Buka Island near Bougainville Island in 1936. His father was a Methodist missionary on the island. He lived in various places such as Casino, Ballina and Bellingen, as his father moved to different parishes. He grew up at Lennox head in New South Wales. Cropp had a very religious upbringing, but when he was 18 "broke totally away from that". His first marriage was to Van Laman, which "didn't last very long". His second wife was Eva Papp, to whom Cropp was married for eight years. His third marriage was to Canadian Lyn Patterson. This marriage lasted 18 years and the Cropp's had two sons Dean and Adam.

As of 2007, Cropp was residing in Port Douglas, Queensland, where for twenty years he also ran a shipwreck museum.

Cropp became a conservationist after an experience off Montague Island in 1964 where he filmed diver George Meyer riding on the back of a whale shark.

Cropp was Ron Taylor's partner in the making of The Shark Hunters.

In 1977, he discovered the wreck of HMS Pandora, almost concurrently with another film maker John Heyer and a boat owner Steve Domm. At that time, John Heyer had done extensive research to establish the predicted area the Pandora wreck was in and launched a discovery expedition with the help of Steve Domm. Cropp gained knowledge of Heyer's expedition and decided to launch his own search with the intention of following Heyer by boat; in this way Ben Cropp found the Pandora wreck on the Great Barrier Reef just before John Heyer did. Cropp also lays claim to over 100 other shipwreck discoveries.

In 1999, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his marine and coastal conservation efforts, and for the promotion and awareness of the Australian marine environment.

In 2000, he was part of the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame's inaugural induction.