Joel Sartore is trying to capture photos of as many species as he can before they disappear. That’s the mission of the National Geographic Photo Ark, which he founded.
Sartore spoke on Sunday, Nov. 3, at the Purdue Northwest Sinai Forum and showed samples of his images.
Capturing the images is no easy task. Sartore travels the world in his craft. “I got hot bat poop in my eye” in one assignment and had to be airlifted home from Uganda.
At an assignment at a small zoo in Peru, the black spider monkeys formed a gang when he was in a protective cage inside their pen.
“You just have to go in, move quickly, and voila, you get your nice monkey pictures,” he was told. “Do not stop for any reason. Just get inside the little room so the mean monkeys can’t get you.”
That was the theory. But the monkeys weren’t easily distracted by the flying bananas thrown into the pen. “The moment the door latched behind me, the bad monkeys turned and raced back,” he said.
Even the “nice” monkey lunged at his face through a screen door, screaming through the wire.
They tore at his hair, clothes and camera gear, and then they suddenly stopped. Suddenly, he felt something like hot tapioca pudding raining down from above. Except it wasn’t tapioca pudding. His vision turned brown as, working together, the monkeys pooped on him all at the same time.
Sartore escaped, covered in feces and gasping for breath, to find tourists standing above him, laughing at him. He got cleaned up, and said, “OK, what’s next?”
“We had some butterflies to shoot, a couple lizards, and the lady who owned the place said, ‘You want to keep going? You’re the first one that that’s happened to who hasn’t just fled.’”
While photographing bears on Alaska’s North Slope, he wasn’t getting the compelling photos he wanted. Then he removed his socks and shoes and captured a photograph of a swarm of mosquitoes feasting on him.
“I just took off shoes and socks and let the mosquitoes eat my feet for about 20 minutes,” he said. The photo was published by National Geographic Magazine. “I got a coupon from a reader for a free pedicure,” he said. “I didn’t think my feet were that bad.”
Sartore looks for impactful photos to spur policymakers and the public to action. One of those photos was of one week’s worth of koalas, all killed by dogs, laid out on a table at a rescue center. A mother and baby koala were included in that tally.
“When that picture came out, it moved the needle,” Sartore said. “About a month afterward, the government of Australia finally declared the northern koala imperiled.” The photo going viral on social media made a difference.
“This is actually the greatest moment in the history of humanity to care a lot about conservation because we can reach people like you wouldn’t believe it,” Sartore said. “Social media has really turned things around.”
When Sartore’s photography career began, his photos had to wait a year to appear in National Geographic. “Now we can tell people in real time. We can celebrate wildlife and tell people how amazing wildlife is and what’s needed to save animals.”
He’s learned a lot about how to move the needle. Bats aren’t popular except at Halloween, so his team posts photos of them then.
Among the missing species in the Photo Ark is the Hoosier bat, so let him know if you find one in an animal rescue center, he said.
Social media posts also herald people and companies doing good things.
Baby animals are also popular on social media. “We know the mother and child, the anthropomorphic, we know that really plays to people. We know that works,” he said.
“How long is it going to take before we realize that as these species go away, so could we,” Sartore asked. “It’s the only thing keeping us from going extinct, especially insects and plants. If we do not save insects and native plants, we’re done.
“We cannot live without them. We have to have pollinators for fruits and vegetables. We have to have ants to clean everything up. This is really key,” Sartore said.
“The photo ark is a bit of a ruse. It’s a bit of a trick. It’s designed to get you hooked and get you into the tent of conservation any way we can to distract you enough from your daily life.
“It would be very little use in me or anybody else exerting all this energy to save the world if people are not being educated into being better stewards than we’ve been,” he said. “If we all lose hope, there is no hope.
“We’re doing what we can. We’re kind to our neighbors, we donate to charity, we might volunteer a little bit, but what I’m saying is going forward think about what else you can do,” Sartore said.
“There’s lots and lots and lots, whether it’s planting native prairie or helping out with dogs and cats, keeping feral cats off the streets, making sure they have a home indoors; making sure that you vote properly; driving a smaller car. Insulate your home. That actually pays you money and keeps carbon from going out of your house.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
