Lincoln photographer Joel Sartore photographed güiña (Leopardus guigna tigriillo) at Fauna Andina in Chile earlier this year. The small wildcat marked the 10,000th addition to his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Lincoln photographer Joel Sartore photographed güiña (Leopardus guigna tigriillo) at Fauna Andina, a wildlife conservation center in Chile earlier this year. The small wildcat marked the 10,000th addition to his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Dwarf squid (Lolliguncula brevis), the 4,000th species photographed in Panacea, Florida, by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Bandula Barb (Pethia bandula), the 9,000th species photographed at the Plzen Zoo, Czech Republic, by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
A naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber), photographed at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo, was the first image taken by Joel Sartore for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Western lowland gorilla, the 2,000th species photographed in Brownsville, Texas, by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Leadbeater's possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri), the 7,000th species photographed at the Healesville Sanctuary in Melbourne Australia, by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Pyrenean Desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) the 8,000th species photographed at the University of Porto in Portugal by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Lincoln photographer Joel Sartore photographed güiña (Leopardus guigna tigriillo) at Fauna Andina, a wildlife conservation center in Chile earlier this year. The small wildcat marked the 10,000th addition to his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), the 1,000th species photographed in Phoenix, Ariz., by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), the 5,000th species photographed at the Budapest Zoo by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Lincoln photographer Joel Sartore photographed güiña (Leopardus guigna tigriillo) at Fauna Andina, a wildlife conservation center in Chile earlier this year. The small wildcat marked the 10,000th addition to his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), the 6,000th species photographed at the Singapore Zoo by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus), the 3,000th species photographed at the Healesville Sanctuary, Victoria, Australia, by Joel Sartore, for his National Geographic Photo Ark project.
The National Geographic Society photographer was at home, nursing a sore ankle Thursday morning.
Joel Sartore is home most of the time these strange and scary days, isolating like the rest of us, but he sometimes gets in his pickup and drives north to the pasture land he owns near Valparaiso. That’s where he was earlier this week, chopping down cedar trees — a native species that grows like a weed — when one fell the wrong way and he slipped down an embankment to avoid it.
He likes being there, in the quiet of nature, spotting badgers and songbirds and ducks.
“I’ll work and I’ll sit in my truck and listen to the meadowlark sing and eat a sandwich,” he said. “The birds don’t know we’re in a pandemic; they don’t care.”

Sartore
But he was game for a phone interview — one of many — on the eve of a big announcement. His baby, the National Geographic Photo Ark, was unveiling a photo.
Another species in Sartore’s effort to document the inhabitants of the world’s zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. One of the smallest wildcats on the planet — the güiña — would mark a big number in the project: 10,000.
A huge milestone, Sartore said.
The Photo Ark has taken Sartore on a dazzling and daunting adventure, and he aims to photograph 15,000 species before he’s done. Sartore figures it will take twice as long to capture the last 5,000 images — farther afield and more remote — as it did to memorialize the first 10,000.
And that effort has taken 15 years.
It all began during another scary time. Sartore was 42. He’d been on the road for 17 years, documenting stories for the magazine that still employs him, but in 2006, his wife, Kathy, was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a year of chemo and radiation in front of her.
He wanted to be home with Kathy and their kids.
He also liked to be busy, so he had this crazy idea. He called it the biodiversity project. (Bad name, he says now, too hard to remember.)
“I went to the Lincoln Children’s Zoo and John Chapo humored me and let me photograph a naked mole rat on a white cutting board in the zoo kitchen.”
Randy Scheer, the zoo's animal curator, went along with it, too, wrangling the rodent for the photo shoot.
Naked mole rat became Species No. 1. The blue and black poison dart frog was No. 2.
He started driving to zoos around the region on days when Kathy felt good. Omaha and Des Moines, Sioux Falls and Kansas City.
The project grew. The Photo Ark Project has six employees and a worldwide reach.
“Now this is all I do,” he said. “And all I plan to do.”
Photo shoots featuring insects and birds, lions and tigers, gibbons and ferrets and fish, many of them threatened or endangered species.
“It’s a wake-up call," he says.
It’s a way to engage people. Show them the beauty of species large and small, each one photographed on a black or white background to put them on a level viewing field.
“To show a mouse is every bit as important as an elephant.”
The earth’s ecosystem and its biodiversity in all its important glory.
“We want to show the world what biodiversity looks like at this point in time,” Sartore said. “And help them understand, when we save species, we save ourselves in the process.”
Sartore spent the first months of 2020 taking photos. In January, he photographed the güiña at Fauna Andina, a wildlife conservation center in south-central Chile, where it was being rehabbed before being released back into the wild.
He used his iPhone and a built-in video camera on his Nikon to capture its cries — believed to be a first audio recording.
From there, he traveled to Peru to photograph rare amphibians and small birds.
February brought a trip to Tennessee and a journey to England and Germany. Then it was off to photograph desert reptiles in Santa Fe, New Mexico — the pandemic shut down a speaking engagement after he arrived — and a polar bear in an Albuquerque zoo.
“I got home on March 13, and home is where we’ve been ever since and that’s fine.”
All but one of the Photo Ark’s six staff members are working remotely.
He’s sobered by the pandemic. “Three friends have had it, and two of them will suffer from permanent heart damage.”
One of those is a 23-year-old former Photo Ark intern and marathon runner.
Sartore is appalled that live animal markets — wet markets — still exist to harbor the pathogens for future pandemics.
“That has to be a global priority out of all of this.”
Friday is Endangered Species Day.
The world will get to see and hear the güiña. At 1 p.m., Sartore will appear on National Geographic Explorer, a 30-minute classroom for kids livestreamed on YouTube to talk about his work and answer questions.
Photo Ark continues from home for now. “There’s always a backlog,” he says.
He recorded a piece on the glory of spring for "CBS Sunday Morning," and it will be on its website this weekend.
He keeps up his efforts to educate: Recycle more, drive less, insulate, plant a pollinator garden, plant a vegetable garden, stop using chemicals on your yard.
And he’s keeping busy with other things — those cedar trees, projects around the house he shares with Kathy, and the youngest of their three children.
He’s spending more time than ever with his wife — the now-healthy wife who inspired the Photo Ark nearly 15 years ago.
“She suggested I go find a barn to live in, is that a bad sign?” he jokes. “Then she modified it to, ‘I should just go live with my brother.’”
Photos: The life and work of Lincoln's Joel Sartore
Veiled chameleon

A veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus) at the Rolling Hills Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Sartore with owl

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore is seen with one of his banner prints of a spotted owl displayed in Morrill Hall on the UNL Campus in 2004.
Clouded leopard

A clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) at the Houston Zoo. This species is listed as federally endangered. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Blue poison dart frog

A Blue poison dart frog (Dendrobates azureus) at Reptile Gardens. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Joel Sartore

Joel Sartore is a longtime National Geographic photographer who lives in Lincoln.
Pygmy marmoset

Pygmy marmoset at Lincoln Children's Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Fiat Lux show

Joel Sartore photographed these four coyote puppies at Nebraska Wildlife Rehab in Louisville. The image, part of Sartore's Photo Ark series, was one of many by several National Geographic photographers that was projected upon the walls of St. Peter's Basilica Dec. 8, 2015. The project, "Fiat Lux: Illuminating Our Common Home," was designed to highlight the plights of animals and bring attention to the Paris climate talks.
Red wolf

A critically endangered red wolf (Canis rufus gregoryi) at the Great Plains Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Photo Ark

The Florida panther (puma concolor coryi) is endangered.
Bald eagle

A bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) named Bensar at the George M. Sutton Avian Research Center. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Lewis-Syford House

Joel Sartore of Lincoln pauses in the middle of a 12-hour workday in 2013 as he worked on the hardwood floor of the Lewis-Syford House, which he and his family were renovating. Built in 1878, the French Second Empire-style house on the 700 block of North 16th Street was being prepared for his eldest son, Cole, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
African elephant

A female African elephant (Loxodonta africana) at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Dog images on soundproofing panels

These dog images are on soundproofing panels in the Pieloch center’s kennel areas in Lincoln's Capital Humane Society. A few years ago Joel Sartore photographed the dogs, which were in the Park Boulevard facility’s adoption program.
Giant panda

A giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) at Zoo Atlanta. This endangered species is native to China. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Debit card art

Photographer Joel Sartore is one of the three artists whose images appear on new Union Bank & Trust debit cards. This image captured by Sartore is of a curl-crested aracari, part of the toucan family.
Ocelot

Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) at the Omaha Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Joel Sartore caricature

This caricature of Joel Sartore was done by Jim Horan, who has drawn all but two of the Omaha Press Club’s 136 Faces on the Barroom Floor.
Kathy and Joel Sartore

Breast cancer survivor Kathy Sartore and husband Joel Sartore, National Geographic photographer, in 2012 stand in front of a gray wolf image he photographed for National Geographic.
Asian lady beetle

Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis). (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Morrill Hall banners

Joel Sartore (right), a National Geographic photographer, and Charles DeVries of SignCo install a banner in between the pillars of Morrill Hall where an exhibit of Sartore's images was displayed in 2004.
Monarch butterflies

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) from the Sierra Chincua mountain range, Mexico. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Sartore NBC

Joel Sartore and Anne Thompson of NBC Nightly News prepare to photograph a West African dwarf crocodile at the Lincoln Children's Zoo in 2012. Sartore was taking images of the 6,000 species in U.S. zoos. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Penstemon

The federally endangered blowout penstemon (Penstemon haydenii), raised by Jim Stubbendieck, who helped bring the plant back from the brink of extinction.
Sartore family

Joel Sartore poses with his wife Kathy and three kids, (from left) Spencer, Ellen and Cole and dog, Muldoon, at their home in Lincoln, Jan. 25, 2009.
Grey gibbons

Grey gibbons (Hylobates muelleri muelleri) at the Miller Park Zoo. This species is listed as endangered. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Sartore flag

Joel Sartore cleans the rain gutter over his front door in late June 2007 after hanging a large American flag.
Salt Creek tiger beetle

The Salt Creek tiger beetle (Cicindela nevadica lincolniana) in a lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Morrill Hall banners

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore (top) gets help from Charles DeVries of SignCO with installing one of two large banners in between the pillars of Morrill Hall to promote an exhibit of Sartore's photography and to raise funds and memberships for the museum on the UNL Campus in 2004.
Two-toed sloth

A Linne's two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) at the Lincoln Children's Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Sartore presentation

Joel Sartore, Lincoln resident and National Geographic photographer, made a presentation on endangered species at Lincoln East in 1999.
Minnows

Minnows over the Powder River in Wyoming, an ecosystem threatened by coal bed methane development.
Joel Sartore shares with the audience

Joel Sartore shares with a 2012 Lincoln audience his photography from travels around the world and how his wife’s breast cancer has impacted him and his family.
Reimann's snake-necked turtle

Reimann's snake-necked turtle (Chelodina reimanni). (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Photo banners

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore views three photo banners of a bison and calf, a puffy prairie dog and tallgrass prairie with walking sticks that were to be displayed in Sartore's exhibit in Morrill Hall in 2004.
Humboldt penguins

Humboldt penguins off the Chilean coast.
Lewis-Syford House

A family portrait of (from left) Cole, Joel, Kathy and Spencer Sartore framed in the second-story window of the Lewis-Syford House, which the family was renovating in 2013.
Mandrill

A captive, 5-month-old mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Ivory-billed woodpecker

Ivory-billed woodpecker, University of Nebraska State Museum.
Photo Ark

Joel Sartore's "Photo Ark: A World Worth Saving" is a 60-page softcover book featuring Sartore's photos of animals.
Sartore founded The Photo Ark, his multiyear documentary project to save species and habitat, which has included having his photos projected on New York City skyscrapers. All of us can share in Sartore's passion through the products he's made available. They include his book "Photo Ark: A World Worth Saving" ($9.95) -- signed copies are available through the website -- as well as daily and wall calendars ($14.95 each).
Black-Tailed Prairie Dog, Montana, 1995

Small as it is, few species are as controversial as the prairie dog. Joel Sartore photographed this one in Montana in 1995. Photo by Joel Sartore/joelsartore.com
Cheetah

Hasari, a 3-year-old cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), at White Oak Conservation Center. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Banners

National Geographic photographer and Nebraska native Joel Sartore (right) and Joel Neilson stand on ladders in 2004 to make a fit for a large photo banner of a bison and calf that was featured in Sartore's exhibit at Morrill Hall.
Coquerel's sifaka

An endangered Coquerel's sifaka (Propithecus coquereli). (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Turkey vulture

A portrait of a turkey vulture. (Courtesy Joel Sartore/joelsartore.com)
Porcupine

Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) at the Great Plains Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Okapi

A male okapi (Okapia johnstoni), at White Oak Conservation Center. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Spectacled owl

A spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata). (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Eastern bongo

A male eastern bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) at the Great Plains Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Amur leopard

Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) named Usi from the Omaha Zoo. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Snowy owl

A young female snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) at Raptor Recovery Nebraska. (JOEL SARTORE/Copyright www.joelsartore.com)
Reach the writer at 402-473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
On Twitter @TheRealCLK