Sharon Guynup

Journalist. Author. Photographer. Producer. Speaker.
National Geographic Explorer. Public Policy Fellow
Co-founder, Big Cat Voices

For two decades, Sharon's award-winning environmental coverage has had impact, with stories on wildlife, ecosystems and the threats that face animals and humans, from pollution and climate change to wildlife trafficking. She also covers conservation efforts and solutions that successfully address these issues.

Her work has appeared in National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, The Harvard Revue, Smithsonian, Mongabay and other outlets. She is a photographer, produces short video, and has worked on TV and film projects as consulting producer, most recently, National Geographic Channel's TRAFFICKED series and an investigative documentary on international wildlife trafficking in big cats to be released in 2024.

Sharon received National Geographic Society's 2024 Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling; is recipient of a 2024 New Jersey State Council on the Arts

grant in Nonfiction; and was named a Changemaker by New York University in 2023. Her work has also garnered awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, New York City's Deadline Club and an Arlene Award for “an article that makes a difference” from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She’s a National Geographic Explorer; lived in Turkey as a Fulbright Scholar; and as a former global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Sharon worked at the intersection of environmental issues and public policy.

Her investigation into the infamous Tiger Temple, a Buddhist monastery and tiger tourism venue, exposed extensive black market wildlife trade; it prompted officials to shut it down and seize all 178 tigers. Sharon's two-year investigation into captive tigers in the United States with photographer Steve Winter exposed wildlife trafficking, fraud and criminal animal abuse. Their 30-page story in National Geographic helped pass a new law, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, ending the cub-petting tourist industry and banning private ownership in the U.S.

Sharon's two books focus on big cats. She has contributed essays to "Photographers Against Wildlife Crime" and other volumes. She created and edited the "State of the Wild" book series for the Wildlife Conservation Society, has edited for Scientific American and other publications, and has a blog, "Out in the Wide World."

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Sharon has reported on big cats from some of the world's most remote wild places. In this book, she shares what she has learned about these iconic cats in a fun, fascinating, fact-filled book for kids–alongside Nat Geo photographer Steve Winter's stunning images.

Together, they capture the beauty, intelligence and secret habits of the animals. But they also tell their stories to bring international attention to the threats that face them and features extraordinary individuals working to protect them. It also teaches kids how to help save these magnificent felines and how to be a good steward for the planet.

Buy on Amazon

Praise for Tigers Forever:

More than compelling, Tigers Forever is a monumental achievement in prose and images. The book is so riveting—nothing short of a hymn about the most endangered of all the big cats—that no reader could conceive of a world without them."

—TOM LOVEJOY

"With eloquent text and photographs of unsurpassed beauty, Tigers Forever opens the eyes of the world to what is happening to the tiger, one of its greatest natural treasures."

—GEORGE SCHALLER

www.tigersforeverbook.com Buy on Amazon

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