by | February 4, 2026
Carlton Ward Jr.’s Conservation Cavalry
Wildlife conservation through photography and film with inspiration drawn from Florida cowboys by Carlton Ward Jr.
Florida cowboys have been heroes to me for as long as I can remember. My family owns a cattle ranch in the small town of Limestone, two miles west of the Peace River in Hardee County—property my great-grandfather bought in the 1930s. Looking back at my life, I suppose it’s natural that I took an interest in photographing Florida cowboys.
I had learned the craft of conservation photography during graduate school while documenting the rainforests of Central Africa with scientists from the Smithsonian. During my time away from Florida, I realized how quickly the wild places of my youth were transforming into housing developments and shopping centers. I saw that Florida’s ranch country was quietly disappearing—yet unseen, overlooked and forgotten to most people. I moved back to Florida in 2004 to help change that.
Early in the project, I went to meet and photograph Alto “Bud” Adams Jr., the patriarch of the Adams Ranch and a well-known cowboy and conservationist. An accomplished photographer himself, Bud offered tremendous support and encouragement for my work. He introduced me to other ranchers, including the legendary sixth-generation Florida cowboy Cary Lightsey, who owns ranches throughout the state and an island in the middle of Lake Kissimmee.
Like Bud, Cary quickly became one of my heroes, both for his command in the saddle and for his pioneering leadership in conservation. When we first met in 2005, he had already protected 90% of his family’s ranchlands in conservation easements—ensuring that vast stretches of the Everglades Headwaters would never be developed. I photographed with Cary and his family many times over the years, including from a helicopter while he drove a herd of cattle along his Tiger Creek Ranch with Lake Kissimmee in the background.
Photographing Florida’s ranches over the years introduced me to Florida black bears and panthers and also inspired me to create the Florida Wildlife Corridor campaign—which brings attention to protection of a connected network of conservation lands throughout the state. Florida already had nearly 10 million acres of public conservation lands. But our incredible public parks and preserves were quickly being cut off from one another by roads and development. The best hope for keeping the existing green spaces connected is conserving Florida’s farms and ranches.
In 2020, motivated by a new toll road that threatened to funnel more development into the Everglades Headwaters, I led a campaign seeking to recognize the Florida Wildlife Corridor in state law. My team at Wildpath brought leading conservation groups together and partnered with the National Geographic Society to make a documentary called “Saving the Florida Wildlife Corridor” that celebrated the importance of the landscape for Florida leaders. One of the main characters of the documentary was Cary Lightsey.
We filmed and interviewed Cary on his Santa Rosa Ranch in the Kissimmee Prairie region of the Everglades Headwaters. I captured this photo during an early morning when we were filming Cary riding out on his horse to gather a herd of cattle. Hold this picture in your mind because most mornings, just before sunrise, this scene is still playing out on ranches across the state, and the wildlife and people of Florida are all benefiting from the land these ranchers are protecting from development. During his documentary interview, Cary said, “If we lose the Florida Wildlife Corridor, we’ve lost it all.”
Thanks to the voices of those who were featured in the film and dedicated themselves to the cause, the 2021 Florida legislature passed the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act with unanimous bipartisan support. More than 400,000 acres of farms and ranches in the Corridor have since been protected. Check out FloridaWildlifeCorridor.com to watch the documentary, hear what Carey has to say and see the magical land he is protecting.
