{"id":678,"date":"2014-06-19T16:07:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T23:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wildnaturephotos.com\/Blog\/?p=678"},"modified":"2014-06-24T11:36:35","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T18:36:35","slug":"ron-austing-1931-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wildnaturephotos.com\/Blog\/2014\/06\/ron-austing-1931-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Austing, 1931 – 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world lost a great wildlife photographer yesterday…
\nand I lost a mentor and a good friend.<\/h3>\n
\"Ron<\/a>

Ron Austing, May, 1987, holding four Eastern Screech Owl fledglings.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Internationally renowned wildlife photographer Ron Austing died peacefully yesterday\u00a0at the age of 82, with his daughters, son and close friends at his bedside, after a hard-fought battle with\u00a0lymphoma.<\/p>\n

Ron Austing was born\u00a0in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1931.\u00a0His interest in wildlife began as a child, after\u00a0his\u00a0family moved to a suburb of Cincinnati called North College Hill. At the time, much of that small village was an undeveloped woodland, surrounded by small farms. This gave Ron the opportunity to observe nature relatively undisturbed. By the age of twelve he had become intimately associated with birds of prey: the hawks and owls, which initiated a lifelong\u00a0passion\u00a0with these birds. His other passion was baseball, and he spent several years working in the dugout of\u00a0the Cincinnati Reds. He remained an avid Reds fan throughout his life.<\/p>\n

Ron’s\u00a0desire to remain close to nature led to his career as a Park Ranger with the Hamilton County Park District in Ohio; essentially, the parks in and surrounding Cincinnati. In his thirty years with the Park District he saw the parks grow from some three thousand acres in 1953 to over sixteen thousand when he retired as a Park Ranger in 1983. After twenty-four years as\u00a0a\u00a0Park Ranger, with the rank of Captain, he became disenchanted with law enforcement and resigned, but he was immediately appointed to be the Park District\u2019s first Wildlife Manager, a post he retained until he ultimately retired. In 1982, Ron\u00a0was awarded the Ohio Conservation Achievement Award by the State of Ohio and the Department of Natural Resources.<\/p>\n

Beginning\u00a0at a relatively young age, Ron combined\u00a0his knowledge of wildlife with his skill as a\u00a0photographer, and he\u00a0became an internationally recognized\u00a0wildlife photographer while\u00a0in his teens. He published his first illustrated article while he was still in high school. Since then, his photos have appeared in literally thousands of publications, including National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Audubon, National Wildlife, Ranger Rick, Birder’s World, Bird Watcher’s Digest, as well as countless other U.S and European publications.<\/p>\n

In addition to the many articles, books and field guides featuring his photography of\u00a0birds, Ron\u00a0authored several books of his own.\u00a0He wrote his first book,\u00a0\u00a0I WENT TO THE WOODS: the Autobiography of a Bird Photographer, while\u00a0he was still in his twenties. He followed with\u00a0THE WORLD OF THE RED-TAILED HAWK and THE WORLD OF THE GREAT HORNED OWL.<\/p>\n

Birds were always Ron’s\u00a0primary subject,\u00a0especially\u00a0birds of prey,\u00a0Kirtland’s Warbler, neotropical migrants in general, as well as the nesting activities of a\u00a0tremendous number of bird\u00a0species.\u00a0The more than fifty thousand transparencies, terabytes of digital files and hundreds of hours of video footage in his collection also\u00a0include insects, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, trees, and flowers. The majority of subjects are representative of Eastern and Midwestern regions of the U.S., with some Western species and a limited number from the Canadian arctic, Ecuador and the Galapagos, Mexico, Africa and India. As the official photographer of\u00a0the Cincinnati Zoo for many years, Ron’s\u00a0photo collection includes controlled conditions or studio images of many internationally rare and endangered species.<\/p>\n

I met Ron 31 years ago in the Education Department of the Cincinnati Zoo. \u00a0We spent many wonderful years together working on wildlife photography projects in the U.S. and Canada. Ron was my Best Man at my wedding, and I was at his bedside when he died. \u00a0A small sample of Ron’s work can be viewed on our website\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and is available for licensing. \u00a0I\u00a0plan to provide a much larger selection of Ron’s work in the near future, and I\u00a0will assist his family in keeping his photographic legacy alive. You can view more of Ron’s work on the website that he used for photographic print sales:\u00a0www.RonAusting.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the following organizations that Ron supported:<\/p>\n

Audubon Society of Ohio<\/a>
\n3398 W. Galbraith Road
\nCincinnati, OH 45239<\/p>\n

Cincinnati Bird Club<\/a>
\n2928 Saddleback Dr.
\nCincinnati, OH 45244<\/p>\n

Oxbow, Inc.<\/a>
\nP.O. Box 4172
\nLawrenceburg, IN 47025<\/p>\n

RAPTOR, Inc.<\/a>
\n961 Barg Salt Run Road
\nMilford, OH 45015<\/p>\n

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology<\/a>
\n159 Sapsucker Woods Rd
\nIthaca, NY 14850<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Memorial Service<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

An open\u00a0gathering for family and friends will be held on Monday, June 30 from 5 pm until the time of the Memorial Service at 8 pm in the High Plains Shelter at the Miami-Whitewater Forest<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world lost a great wildlife photographer yesterday… and I lost a mentor and a good friend.   Internationally renowned wildlife photographer Ron Austing died peacefully yesterday\u00a0at the age of 82, with his daughters, son and close friends at his bedside, after a hard-fought battle with\u00a0lymphoma. Ron Austing was born\u00a0in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1931.\u00a0His interest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,19,37],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-conservation","tag-hawks","tag-ron-austing"],"yoast_head":"\nRon Austing, 1931 - 2014 - WildNaturePhotos Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wildnaturephotos.com\/Blog\/2014\/06\/ron-austing-1931-2014\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ron Austing, 1931 - 2014 - WildNaturePhotos Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The world lost a great wildlife photographer yesterday… and I lost a mentor and a good friend.   Internationally renowned wildlife photographer Ron Austing died peacefully yesterday\u00a0at the age of 82, with his daughters, son and close friends at his bedside, after a hard-fought battle with\u00a0lymphoma. 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