William Wise

Unido: 26.may.2018 Última actividad: 28.mar.2024 iNaturalist Patrocinador mensual desde junio 2021

Hi, I’m nature writer and conservation photographer William Wise. I graduated from University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources' wildlife management program in 1996. I'm currently an animal shelter manager and reside in Athens, Georgia, USA with my wife and two teenage daughters. William Wise Photography is my wildlife and birding photo website documenting the beauty, design and wonder of creation.

My first love was reptiles. In the 1990s when I should have been studying, I was taking trips to southeastern swamps to snake hunt. Then, in the spring of 1996, I participated in an alligator capture-tag-release program on Bear Island WMA, SC. After holding my first juvenile gator and restraining a growling adult underneath me, I was hooked on gators! I began the iNat Alligator Appetites Project and iNat Alligator Mortality Project. I also started collections projects for each state to make the iNat Alligator Observations by State umbrella project to compare the number of American Alligator observations by state.

I have a deep love of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. I am not an Okefenokee expert, but certainly an Okefenokee enthusiast! To show off this wonderful National Wildlife Refuge and promote its conservation, I started the Okefenokee Photography Project blog where I post photography, journals, facts and natural history of the swamp.

In 2017, upon discovering the eBird app, birding also became an obsession. Prior to that, my interest was limited to "hawks and herons". Now I delight in photographing and listing as many as I can in my regular birding patches in Clarke and Walton Counties, Georgia.

I became a devoted Christian in 1993 under a campus ministry while studying wildlife biology at the University of Georgia. My love of the outdoors quickly turned into a love for the Creator and His works. Creation Speaks is my teaching ministry that glorifies our Creator and teaches the truth of creation. I am also a guest author at Lee's Birdwatching Adventures and The Creation Club. The theme of my blogging comes from The Message version of Psalms 104 -- "What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at Your side, You made earth overflow with your wonderful creations."

As an animal shelter manager, most of my non-nature photography is of the adoptable dogs and cats and can be seen posted as Happy Endings . I sell my stock pet and wildlife photos primarily to support the pet adoption website.

I used Minolta in the film days. I've retired a couple Nikon DSLR cameras throughout the years (D80, D7000) and now primarily use the Nikon D500 with a Sigma 150-600mm lens for most of my wildlife photography. (But I also have to admit that my iPhone 11 Pro Max gets pulled out quite a bit for the wider angle shots when I don't feel like swapping lenses.)

Ver todas