ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Ronan Donovan knows firsthand that the ‘big bad wolf’ you hear about in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ does not describe the wolves he’s seen up-close.
Donovan, a biologist-turned-National-Geographic-explorer, spent time with wolves in the United States and Canada. The photographs he took during those adventures are now on display, as part of a special exhibit at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Pete.
The wolves Donovan encountered at Yellowstone National Park were leery of humans; they’ve been hunted there. The wolves Donovan saw at Ellesmere Island in Canada were far less suspicious of Donovan; they haven’t been hunted there.
“(In Canada) he spent a summer where it’s sunlight 24 hours a day,” said Emily Kapes, Chief Curator at the James Museum. “He was able to really follow the wolves over the tundra, be there with them for a few months and observe them really closely.”
Donovan turned those observations into an exhibit of photographs that Kapes says show wolves are social, work in teams and are not that different from humans.
It will be at the James Museum on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg through Sept. 8. The museum is open seven days a week.
Jeff Butera
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