Photo Ark

The Photo Ark is a National Geographic project which has the goal of photographing all species living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries around the globe. A selection of photographs from the project has been exhibited in various museums, zoos, and exhibition halls around the world. The results have also been documented in a series of books as well as in a PBS TV miniseries. All quotes in this article are from the book The Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals.

By Joel Sartore

 * I think of myself as an ambassador, a voice for the voiceless.
 * Page 32


 * It’s hard to avoid anthropomorphism - hard not to read human attitude and intentions into the bodies and faces of these creatures. We gaze into their eyes and see another living being. These are mirrored reflections by which we connect to the animals of the Photo Ark, finding the many ways in which they look like each other - and like us.
 * Page 37


 * When you look them in the eye, you see clearly that we’re not so very different.
 * Page 52


 * It amazes me that some of our most well-known species are the ones that are closest to extinction.
 * Page 185


 * All creatures great and small are valuable and magnificent, and all deserve the right to exist.
 * Page 246


 * How do we treat the least among us? That is the true measure of any society.
 * Page 293


 * Increasingly, zoos are serving as conservation centers. They’re the real arks now, and the only thing that stand between many rare species and extinction.
 * Page 300


 * The animals I photograph are passive and aggressive, shy and showoff, silly and playful. In other words, they’re just like us.
 * Page 317


 * This doesn’t have to end here. You can save species if you try. Each of us can have a real and lasting impact.
 * Page 371

By others

 * Our water, our food, the air we breathe, the fertility of our soil, and the stability of our climate: All of these depend on the complex interactions of myriad species. Think of nature as a tapestry, and each species as a thread. There is no way of knowing which threads bind the whole thing together. Each one that is pulled brings the tapestry closer to unraveling.
 * Harrison Ford (Vice Chair, Board of Directors of Conservation International), from the Foreword, page 11


 * This is one of the most scientifically important — and artistically brilliant — books ever.
 * Jane Goodall, Dust jacket


 * Every animal, no matter how small or seemingly insignificantly, has a role to play in the delicate balance of nature.
 * Don Butler, Page 150


 * Every person can do one thing, even if it is small, to help wildlife.
 * Betsy Finch, Page 332