Acclaimed wildlife photographer Ronan Donovan to speak at Whatcom Museum event this week

The modern wellness movement wants you to know that you’re not special, according to acclaimed wildlife photographer Ronan Donovan.

“Much of it is just being animals again, just literally embracing the fact that we are not special, we are not separate from the animal world,” Donovan said on a video call from his phone with the Bellingham Herald. “We are still animals, we are beholden to our evolutionary past, and embracing that actually makes us healthier, more content, balanced humans and communities.”

Donovan won’t be speaking about wellness when he visits the Mount Baker Theatre on Friday, May 24, for a talk hosted by the Whatcom Museum. But the Montana-based photographer said that much of his work supports that premise. He’s studied and documented the lives of social mammals,

“The theme that I focus on is related to what we as humans can learn from our fellow social mammals. … So it’s sharing information, stories, photos, videos and insights about essentially these wild animals that mirror much of our lives in many ways — in social, in familiar, in political systems, in diet, behavior, struggles and joys,” Donovan said.

Donovan’s talk is part of an ongoing exhibit at the museum displaying some of the best wildlife photography from National Geographic. Donovan has done extensive work for the publication, including a year inside Yellowstone National Park photographing wolves. One of the photos from Donovan’s wolf series is on display in the exhibit.

According to Adrienne Dawson, the Whatcom Museum’s director of marketing and public relations, the museum decided to host Donovan in order to give visitors a chance to hear about the work that goes into the photographs on display in the exhibit.

“We considered several possible speakers and were all drawn to Ronan’s work, his focus on conservation and his candid storytelling,” Dawson said in an email to the Bellingham Herald. “This event has been months in the making, and we were so happy to find out he could travel to Bellingham during the exhibition, both for our longtime members and guests and for everyone visiting Whatcom County this weekend.”

Donovan has been a finalist for the London Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, had his work featured in National Geographic’s list of the best photographs of the year, and been named to the organization’s Photo Society. To the Vermont native, wildlife photography is about informing the public as much as it’s about capturing beauty in nature.

“To truly understand an experience or even to truly understand another person, you have to spend time with them. That is a challenge, that a lot of people don’t have access to the natural world, or they have access, but they have a lack of education or understanding about it, or they’re scared of certain elements about it,” Donovan said. “The U.S. is over 80% urban-living now, so people are inherently disconnected from the natural world.”

That’s never been a problem for Donovan, who grew up surrounded by nature.

“I grew up in rural Vermont, and my parents were teachers and they were very adamant about my brother and I growing up in the natural world, growing up outside [as] dirty little feral kids with our dogs outside, catching frogs and salamanders and snakes and learning about the birds around our home.”

Donovan became a wildlife biologist, traveling to Uganda to study chimpanzees. But Donovan realized that it was more important to communicate his understanding of wildlife to the public than it was to conduct his own research, and in 2014, he switched to photography full-time.

“I realized that I wanted to help contribute to inform people about the challenges that the natural world is facing, and that we, as a result, are facing. As we degrade the natural world, we also degrade ourselves.”

The event begins at 7 p.m. Friday, May 24, with doors opening at 6. Tickets start at $20.60 and are available on the theater’s website. The event is part of the National Geographic Live series, in which a wildlife photographer, researcher or explorer gives the audience a closer look at their work through stories, pictures and videos.

This story was originally published May 21, 2024 at 2:21 PM.