James Ward seated in a parked jeep on the plains

Photos: Courtesy of James Ward/Rewild Safaris

The Wild World of James Ward ’96

From the Amazon to Australasia, Ward organizes safari adventures that help people explore wildlife around the planet.

When James Ward ’96 was fifteen years old, a mountain gorilla tried to steal his hat. It was 1989 and, as part of his first safari in Africa, Ward and his family were in Rwanda to see the great apes. “We spent an hour sitting among a family of mountain gorillas,” Ward recalled recently. It was awe-inspiring, he said, to have such close encounters with wildlife in their natural habitat. “I will never forget it. At the time, I wasn’t saying that I wanted to make a career out of it, but I knew I wanted it to be part of what I do.” 

As it turned out, Ward’s life and work now revolve around his personal experiences with wildlife. Today he is cofounder and CEO—that’s Chief Explorations Officer—of Rewild Safaris, which organizes private adventures all around the world. Travelers with Rewild might find themselves observing herds of giraffes from a hot air balloon in Tanzania, being serenaded by howler monkeys while on a boat tour in Belize, soaking in rare blue whale sightings off the coast of Sri Lanka, or tracking black rhinos on foot in Zimbabwe before suppering under the stars and retiring to their campsites.

Rewild Safaris was born in 2021. The business, which has grown in that time from a few dozen travelers a year to more than seven hundred booked in 2026 alone, has now led travelers across twenty-three countries on five continents on two-week-long safaris.

Ward said the company is committed to conservation efforts and to responsible ecotourism in the delicate environments where it operates. Rewild partners with local business owners and conservationists who share a belief that, when done right, safari operations can help to protect endangered species and threatened habitats while simultaneously bringing economic opportunity to places where some people may be living on a few dollars a day. For example, Ward said that in India, where Rewild develops safari experiences with an organization called the Snow Leopard Conservancy, poor ranchers who used to kill snow leopards that preyed on livestock are now protecting the scarce wild cats to encourage ecotourism. Rewild also works with zoos and aquariums to bring major donors on wildlife journeys that Ward said inspire them to financially support such institutions and their conservation efforts. “I want the experiences to be intimate,” Ward said. “The closer you are to wildlife, the more you’re going to appreciate it.”

Hands holding a phone showing a photo of food.

In addition to being CEO of Rewild Safaris, James Ward, seen here with a meerkat in Botswana, is a professional wildlife photographer.

That’s a lesson Ward has been learning since his first teenage meeting with that mountain gorilla. After graduating from Boston College, where he majored in mathematics, and the NYU Stern School of Business, where he studied management, Ward went on to run his family’s Connecticut-based business, which managed retail operations for zoos, aquariums, and museums, from designing their on-site gift shops to producing the stuffed animals that sat on store shelves. It was work that allowed Ward to travel the world on research trips, develop his skills as a professional wildlife photographer (which he continues to employ today, separate from his work with Rewild), and spend time with his father, Gerry Ward ’63, the star BC basketball player. “On one of our first trips together, we didn’t even sleep in tents,” Ward recalled. “We slept on cots in a gazebo, with lions a quarter-mile away at a watering hole. To spend eighteen days alone in the bush with somebody, that’s time that most people don’t get.”

Now that he stewards a safari business, occasionally even leading tours himself, Ward likes to emphasize that the name Rewild doesn’t just refer to the company’s conservation projects, which can include reintroducing native species to habitats where their numbers have disappeared. “There’s a second meaning,” Ward said. “We want to rewild the traveler by getting them back into nature.”  Ward said he’s keen to formulate safari opportunities for travelers who are not the affluent retirees that the company typically works with. To do that, Rewild recently launched a series of one-week safaris aimed at mid-career millennials, and Ward said that he is also exploring new experiences in North America, which could be even shorter and less expensive while introducing clients to the species and conservation stories in their own backyards.

Ward said that being exposed to extraordinary wildlife, different global cultures, and the work of dedicated conservationists has been a humbling experience. That’s why, decades after his first safari with his parents, he makes a point these days to share some of his travels with his three daughters. “You gain a totally different respect for wildlife and where you fit in the chain,” he said. “You see yourself as part of a bigger ecosystem, rather than as something above it.” ◽

A Global Menagerie 

In addition to running a safari company, James Ward is a seasoned nature photographer. Here are some of his favorite photos he's taken from around the world.

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