Heinz Sielmann (2 June 1917 – 6 October 2006) was a German wildlife photographer, biologist, zoologist and documentary filmmaker.

[2] After the war he began widely recognized work for the Educational Film Institute of the Federal Republic of Germany.

His feature film about woodpeckers, Carpenters of the Forest (Zimmerleute des Waldes, 1954; UK title: Woodpecker) was a huge success in the United Kingdom when broadcast by the BBC in 1955[3] at the behest of Sir Peter Scott.

His work includes the movies Lords of the Forest (better known in the USA under its title Masters of the Congo Jungle) (1959), the English version narrated by Orson Welles; Galapagos – Dream Island in the Pacific (1962); Vanishing Wilderness (1973); and The Mystery of Animal Behavior.

He was mentioned in the 1974 Monty Python's Flying Circus episode "Blood, Devastation, Death, War, and Horror".