National Geographic photographer shares stories, images of threatened creatures

Joel Sartore is more than a photographer. He’s a conservationist.

Over more than 30 assignments for National Geographic magazine, he’s encountered some the world’s most beautiful, amazing and endangered critters. He’ll tell stories from his adventures and share images and video of the animals he’s encountered during his “National Geographic Live” presentation, “Grizzlies, Piranhas and Man-Eating Pigs” on Tuesday at the INB Performing Arts Center in Spokane.

“It’s the story of what it’s like to work for National Geographic,” he said by phone recently from the Seattle airport, en route from a photo shoot in Alaska to his home in Nebraska. “We tell a lot of stories from the field. Everything from being chased by grizzly bears to being in the Amazon and getting a flesh-eating parasite, and also the pigs down there are not fun either. They can rip you up.”

The hour goes quickly, he said, and there’s time afterward for questions and answers.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Sartore said. “It’s meant to be entertaining, but also to get people to think and be inspired about the planet.”

He credits his work for what he calls “the greatest magazine on Earth” with changing his life and inspiring him to make a difference. “The world’s animals are on the run,” he said. “They’re in trouble.”

Sartore has photographed animals that since have gone extinct. He’s photographed a frog – a male Rabb’s fringe-limbed treefrog – at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens that is the last of its species.

“But I’ve also photographed animals that have been on the brink and been saved,” he said.

When he’s not doing a project for National Geographic – Sartore averages one assignment a year for the magazine these days – he’s working to preserve for all time some of the world’s 12,000 species in captivity.

With his Photo Ark project, Sartore aims to create studio-quality images of animals. As many as he can.

“The goal is to get every captive species on Earth, to get the public to care about the extinction crisis,” he said, “and be moved to save species while there’s still time.”

He’s been working on the Photo Ark for 10 years, and has photographed about 4,500 species; he figures it’ll take him another 20 years to finish the project.

“I figure it’s time well spent because it’s already the world’s largest archive of studio-quality animal photography,” Sartore said. “For most species, this is the only time they’ll really be photographed well. Because I care about the little stuff. Not just the tigers and the polar bears. … My job is to give a voice to the voiceless. I really want the public to meet these species before we lose them.”