Environment

Both Beauty and Extinction, Staring Us in the Eyes

By Christina Nunez October 10, 2019

The drive to capture what's fleeting and beautiful exists for all of us—look no further than your photo-packed phone. For Joel Sartore, that instinct took him on a quest to archive the world's biodiversity. The Lincoln, Nebraska-based photographer has traveled to 40 countries and made portraits of more than 9,000 species as part of the National Geographic Photo Ark.

Sartore started the Photo Ark about 11 years ago with the goals of educating people about these animals, inspiring action and supporting conservation efforts. The problem is urgent: As many as 1 million species are headed toward extinction.

"It’s folly to think that we can throw away so much life and not have it affect humanity in a profound and negative way," Sartore says in a recent interview. “The biggest question of our time is: Will we wake up and act, or will we stare into our smartphones all the way down to disaster? My goal is to get the public to care about the extinction crisis while there’s still time to save the planet and everything that lives here.”

With his striking images, Sartore documents not only the stunning and cuddly creatures, but the strange and unsettling ones, too. Taken together, the photos create a sense of awe, and they might even choke you up. “It’s the eye contact that moves people,” Sartore says. “It engages their feelings of compassion and a desire to help.”

Neofelis nebulosa (on Homo sapiens)
Neofelis nebulosa (on Homo sapiens)
After a photo shoot at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, a clouded leopard cub climbs on Sartore’s head. The leopards, which live in Asian tropical forests, are illegally hunted for their spotted pelts.
Grahm S. Jones, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
Canis rufus gregoryi
Canis rufus gregoryi
A pair of red wolves at the Great Plains Zoo. Red wolves offer an example of what conservation efforts, and laws like the Endangered Species Act, can achieve. Though the species is still endangered, rehabilitation efforts beginning in 1967 pulled red wolves back from the brink of extinction.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Propithecus coquereli
Propithecus coquereli
A Coquerel's sifaka at the Houston Zoo. The endangered Coquerel's sifaka is a type of lemur native to Madagascar and now found only in two protected areas of northwestern Madagascar.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Phascolarctos cinereus
Phascolarctos cinereus
A federally threatened koala with her babies at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital. Stuffed "koala bear" toys are misnamed: Koalas are actually marsupials, not bears, and their name is thought to be an Aboriginal reference ("no drink") to the fact that they don't need much water.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Rhinopithecus roxellana
Rhinopithecus roxellana
Two Golden snub-nosed monkeys at Ocean Park Hong Kong. A recent study found that mothers in this vulnerable species will nurse each other's babies, which may help overall survival.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Panthera tigris jacksoni
Panthera tigris jacksoni
An endangered Malayan tiger at Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo. Found only on the Malay Peninsula and parts of Thailand, the species was listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2015.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Puma concolor coryi
Puma concolor coryi
A federally endangered Florida panther at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo. The only puma known to exist east of the Mississippi, Florida panthers keep populations of other species, such as feral hogs and deer, in check.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Nycticebus pygmaeus
Nycticebus pygmaeus
A pygmy slow loris at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. Though they look cute and harmless, lorises are the only venomous primates in the world.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Gyps africanus
Gyps africanus
A critically endangered African white-backed vulture at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Surviving on carrion, vultures perform nature's cleanup and recycling duties, which can help prevent the spread of bacteria and disease.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo pygmaeus x abelii
Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo pygmaeus x abelii
An endangered baby Bornean orangutan, named Aurora, with her adoptive mother, Cheyenne, a Bornean/Sumatran cross, at the Houston Zoo. Palm plantations and other habitat destruction have decimated populations of orangutans, which spend their entire lives up in trees.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Brachylophus fasciatus
Brachylophus fasciatus
A Fiji Island banded iguana at the Los Angeles Zoo. Found only on the Fiji Islands, these colorful lizards have suffered habitat loss from mining, logging and other land use changes.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Geochelone platynota
Geochelone platynota
Three critically endangered, yearling Burmese star tortoises at the Turtle Conservancy. Hunted for their beautiful shells, their populations have been reduced to fewer than 5,000 worldwide.
© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Joel Sartore
The Photographer
A portrait of Joel Sartore, a National Geographic Fellow and regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, taken in Lincoln, Nebraska. "When we save species, we’re actually saving ourselves," he says.
COLE SARTORE
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Neofelis nebulosa (on Homo sapiens)
Canis rufus gregoryi
Propithecus coquereli
Phascolarctos cinereus
Rhinopithecus roxellana
Panthera tigris jacksoni
Puma concolor coryi
Nycticebus pygmaeus
Gyps africanus
Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo pygmaeus x abelii
Brachylophus fasciatus
Geochelone platynota
Joel Sartore