Photographer Page

Ami Vitale

A portrait of the first rescued orphan elephant at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya.

It’s feeding time for hungry orphans at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. Established in 2016, the refuge is staffed by local Samburus; some are warriors who once feared the creatures. This image was published in August 2017.

Orphan elephants gather around a water hole in northern Kenya’s Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in an article published in August 2017. The Samburu communities that care for the young animals try to return them to their original habitat, where they’ll have a good chance of reconnecting with their relatives. Ami Vitale’s photographs reflect National Geographic’s shift toward covering solutions to the crisis of declining elephant populations.

A panda keeper in Wolong, Sichuan Province, dons a panda suit to perform a health check on a cub in an attempt to shelter the captive-bred bear from human presence in preparation for life in the wild. Labelled endangered in 1990, the panda’s wild population has almost doubled after 30 years of government recovery efforts.

Orphaned elephants gather at a watering hole at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. A new study finds that wild orphaned elephants who live among same-aged peers have lower stress levels than elephants who don't.

Mothers and daughters enjoy an outing in Weligama, a popular beach resort on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. This photo appeared in a November 2016 story documenting the prolonged aftermath of a civil war.

The giant panda was recently reclassified from endangered to vulnerable by the IUCN, due to positive population trends. It's estimated around 1,900 individuals remain in the wild, and increasing.

China's Sichuan province, home of both the giant panda and the red panda. The latter's habitat is wider, stretching from Nepal in the west to China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. In 2020 it was found this has enabled two distinct subspecies of red panda to evolve, which diverged around 250,000 years ago – the more vibrant Chinese red panda, and the paler Himalayan red panda.

A mother panda tends to her infant at Bifengxia Panda Centre in Sichuan Province, China. This photo appeared in an August 2016 story about China's efforts to raise pandas and release them into the wild.

A nurse greets a new mother at the maternity ward in Sri Lanka's Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The photo appeared in a November 2016 story about Sri Lanka's recovery from a civil war that lasted from 1983 to 2009.