The Wild Path: Connecting the Florida We Don’t See Photographs by Carlton Ward Jr.

Carlton Ward Jr. is a conservation photographer focused on wild Florida. He founded the Florida Wildlife Corridor project in 2010 and has since trekked 2,000 miles during two National Geographic supported expeditions to advocate for the corridor’s protection. An eighth-generation Floridian, Ward has developed strong connections with conservation organizations, researchers, and landowners. His family owns a ranch in the Peace River Valley that provides habitat for Florida panthers and he has several cousins who are full-time cowboys in the Greater Everglades. He is now working as an ambassador for the recovery of the Florida panther, a plan that calls for conservation of hundreds of thousands of acres of ranchlands and forests and across Florida. Ward is a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers. Ward is also the lead photographer and central figure in the 2022 documentary Path of the Panther , which focuses on his efforts to protect the endangered Florida panther and its habitat through the Florida Wildlife Corridor initiative. For his first book, The Edge of Africa, Ward worked for the Smithsonian Institution documenting little known biological diversity in the tropical rain forests of Gabon. Resulting photographs were exhibited at a United Nations reception in New York. His 2009 book, Florida Cowboys, won a medal in the Florida Book Awards. In 2015, Ward was given the Conservation Leadership Award from the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida and named the Rolex Artist-in-Residence with the Explorers Club. Ward’s photographs are exhibited widely and have been published in magazines including Audubon, Smithsonian, Geo, Africa Geographic, Nature Conservancy, and National Geographic.