Ronan Donovan

Photo by Mark Thiessen

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Ronan Donovan

Photographer

Social By Nature

Thursday, November 17, 2022

What’s a human? We are, at our core, social mammals. We build relationships, communicate, reproduce, establish territories, and adapt to shrinking resources. In these ways, we’re no different than other social mammals. Chimpanzees, wolves, and gorillas are among the most charismatic of the mammals we know. We identify with them as species, groups, and even as named individuals. They’re also under threat. Join biologist-turned-photographer Ronan Donovan as he talks about his work in documenting these animals and what we, as fellow social mammals, can learn from them.

  • Aerial photography within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The goal of this flight was to locate and photograph the Mollies Wolf Pack in the Pelican Valley area of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The plane is used to track radio-collared wolves from the air, which is infinitely easier than on foot. From the air you can cover much more territory and there are no physical barrios to the signal – like mountains. Pilots were Steve Ard of Tracker Aviation Inc
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  • Arriving before daybreak and dodging a few forest elephants on the trek into the forest, I climbed the fig tree and waited for the chimps to arrive. The tree began to shake as the first chimps arrived in the dark to begin feeding on the ripe fruits. When chimpanzees find a tree full of ripe fruits it’s a big deal, one that must be shared. This 3-year old male chimpanzee, named Wallace, can’t help but join in during a chorus of adult chimpanzees pant-hooting over their discovery of a ripe fig tree (Ficus capensis). Watching the sunrise over this East Africa rainforest from my perch alongside a dozen wild chimpanzees made me feel at home, if only for an instance, next to our closet relatives.
  • This family unit of adult female eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) with their offspring move through the forest from one fruiting tree to another. Kibale National Park, Uganda.
  • An infant chimpanzee plays with a lounging male as she sits in her mother's lap. Uganda.
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  • The 4th day of gorilla tracking with the Pablo Group mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) on Mount Karisimbi in Volcanoes National Park in Northern Rwanda. They were a little lower down than before, over 10,000ft in some thicker lobelia and thistle forested area. It had rained most of night and so they gorillas seemed tired. They slept for most of the session. I focused mainly on a small 3 month on infant with its mother.
  • The 4th day of gorilla tracking with the Pablo Group mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) on Mount Karisimbi in Volcanoes National Park in Northern Rwanda. They were a little lower down than before, over 10,000ft in some thicker lobelia and thistle forested area. It had rained most of night and so they gorillas seemed tired. They slept for most of the session. I focused mainly on a small 3 month on infant with its mother.
  • This bison drowned in the Yellowstone River over the winter when it tried to cross. A grizzly bear had been feeding on this carcass for several days before I setup a camera trap.
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Biography

Ronan Donovan is a born explorer. He inherited his sense of adventure and love of the natural world from his parents, who once sailed across the Atlantic. From his birth in rural Vermont in a cabin his father built, Ronan’s life has been a series of adventures.

 

Donovan taught himself photography and filmmaking while working on a series of wildlife biology projects. In 2014, feeling he could make more of an impact through his visual storytelling than as a biologist, he turned to photography and filmmaking full time.

 

His photographic journeys for National Geographic include an entire year living inside Yellowstone National Park documenting the life of wild wolves, hiking volcanoes to photograph mountain gorillas and documenting the human-wildlife conflict between wild chimpanzees and humans in Africa. His film work has aired on PBS’s Nature and on the BBC.

 

He’s traveled to all seven continents, and in 2017 he was accepted into the Photo Society of National Geographic. His photographs have hung on the walls of the Natural History Museum in London and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

 

His unique ability to tell the stories of the animals he focuses on elicits compassion in a relatable way and engages people for conservation. Photography allows him to give a voice to his subjects.

 

Donovan now lives in Bozeman, Montana, where he loves to explore the Rocky Mountains.