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Leo Keeler was born in Bisbee, Arizona. He completed his first solo overnight backpacking trip at the age of nine and began studying wildlife through the live capture of ground squirrels.
Dorothy Keeler was raised in San Jose, California. Her parents tolerated the assortment of pets she cared for, including alligator lizards, horned toads, show horses, frogs, cats, turtles, fish, dogs, and a pet piranha named Fang.
They met in 1988, and their business evolved from sharing similar goals. Their mission is to provide quality, affordable images that inspire, entertain, educate, and encourage others to conserve and protect our world and its creatures.
From their home in Anchorage, Alaska, Leo and Dorothy are pleased to share the results from 12 years of photographing wildlife. They consider themselves fortunate to have seen and recorded many animals and birds in comical moments. Tell Me Why... My Armpits Won't Dry is one way to share them.
The self-taught pair shoot between 200 and 300 rolls of film a year and use the Canon EOS3 system. When asked why they don't have the newest Canon EOS 1V, they quip about their reluctance to spend the money needed for six of them. Several years ago, they brought six camera bodies along on a trip to Denali National Park. After an exasperating experience and a number of mishaps, they returned with only one intact.
They have served as wildlife guides for several filmmakers in Denali National Park and been featured on "Men's Journal," produced for ESPN, "Living Dangerously," produced for BBC, "World's Best: Place to Walk on the Wild Side - Alaska," produced for the Travel Channel, and a new series to be shown on The Discovery Channel this summer.
The Keelers are leaders of the private, non-profit group Friends of McNeil River, dedicated to protecting the world famous McNeil River brown bears. They were instrumental in establishing the 132,000-acre McNeil River Refuge. In 1995 the Keelers were featured on CBS News' "Eye on America" with John Blackstone twice when they led a drive to thwart a bear hunt in the refuge by encouraging people to apply for a permit and stay home if their names were drawn. It worked. Six of the eight permits were awarded to people who had applied for a hunting license to save the bears' lives. The Keelers later led the effort that closed the refuge to brown bear hunting.
The Keelers currently are working in partnership with The Alaska Wildlife Alliance to protect the famed Toklat wolf pack in Denali National Park. The Toklat wolves are the most famous, most viewed, most photographed, and first and longest studied group of wild wolves in the world. On November 2, 1999, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather featured the Keelers and the Toklat wolves in a special segment of "Eye on America."
On February 3, 2000, the Keelers received the Ginny Hill Wood Award from The Alaska Wilderness Recreation & Tourism Association for their photographic contributions to the wildlife conservation efforts in Alaska.
Their work has been featured in national ad campaigns that have been published in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Newsweek, Life, Sports Illustrated, Field and Stream, TV Guide, People and Alaska Magazine, as well as the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
"This book is the realization of a 30-year dream," says Dorothy. "I have wanted to write for a living since college, but was simply too scared to try. My 12 years studying wildlife with Leo, and the conservation issues we have actively been involved with, developed the passion that overcame the fear. I hope our work fuels a passion for wildlife in youngsters that lasts long after we're gone."
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