About Isabelle Groc
Isabelle Groc is a writer, conservation photographer, documentary filmmaker, book author, and speaker based in Vancouver, Canada. She focuses on environmental science, wildlife natural history and conservation, endangered species, marine mammals and ecosystems, climate change, and the changing relationships between people and the natural world. She aims to create stories that increase our understanding and awareness of conservation issues and inspire change.
Originally from the South of France, Isabelle has a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Diplôme de l’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris.
With her dual background in photojournalism and urban planning, Isabelle brings a unique perspective in environmental storytelling. She has travelled to some of the world’s most remote and uncharted destinations to raise the profile of diverse species and habitats, from following seabirds in isolated atolls in the South Pacific to documenting the elusive narwhal in the Arctic, swimming with humpback whales, photographing endangered caribou on British Columbia’s mountain tops, tracking coastal wolves in the Pacific Northwest, and filming tiny shorebirds on their extreme migration along the Pacific and the Atlantic Flyways to the Arctic.
As a photojournalist, Isabelle works closely with conservation groups and scientists to create visuals and narratives that help educate the public and guide environmental and policy change. Her work aims to celebrate biodiversity and inspire a meaningful and lasting connection to the natural world.
She also gives numerous public presentations for various audiences on exploration, wildlife and conservation, photography and storytelling. She also enjoys presenting in the classroom and in the field, engaging audiences from Kindergarten to grade 12, and inspiring children and youth to connect to the natural world and protect endangered wildlife. She is a keynote speaker for various organizations and events.
Isabelle’s stories and photographs have appeared in National Geographic News, BBC Wildlife, Canadian Geographic, the Guardian, Canadian Wildlife, Scientific American, New Scientist, and many other publications worldwide.
Isabelle is the author of four non-fiction children’s books published by Orca Books: Gone is Gone: Wildlife under Threat with foreword by Jane Goodall (Fall 2019), Sea Otters: A Survival Story, with foreword by Dame Judi Dench and David F. Mills (April 2020). Conservation Canines: How Dogs Work for the Environment with foreword by Anjelica Huston (September 2021), and A Hummingbird on my Balcony (April 2025).
As a filmmaker, Isabelle has written and directed over twenty films on wildlife and the relationships between people and the natural world. Her films have been screened at environmental and wildlife film festivals, nature events, educational institutions, and science museums around the world. Her documentary Part of the Pack, explores the complex interactions between people and wolves, was nominated for five BC LEO Awards, won several film festival awards, including the Arctic Film Festival, and is currently streaming on the Knowledge Network. Her previous documentary, Toad People, achieved international recognition with an Impact Panda Award from the Wildscreen Film Festival in Bristol, the world’s biggest festival of natural history storytelling. Isabelle’s most recent documentary, Sandpipers’ Last Supper, explores shorebirds’ epic migration from South America to Alaska.
In 2024, Isabelle was selected as a grantee of the prestigious Trebek Initiative, a collaboration between the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the National Geographic Society that supports explorers who utilize the power of storytelling to inspire and engage communities across Canada. She is also a recipient of the Sitka Foundation Messengers of Biodiversity Reporting Grant for her work on shorebirds.
Isabelle was awarded several environmental reporting fellowships, including the Sagebrush Country Institute fellowship from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, the Puget Sound Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources fellowship, the Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment fellowship, and the Great Waters Institute fellowship from the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. In 2019, Isabelle was awarded the Guerry Beam Memorial Reporting Award by the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources to cover kelp conservation in California. She has also received three COMPASS journalist fellowships in 2011, 2014, and 2015. In 2011 Isabelle was awarded a Silver Award in the Public Issues category by the International Regional magazine Association (IRMA) Awards for her article “Orca Encounters” published in British Columbia Magazine.
Her wildlife photography achievements have been honoured through the 2005 CBC David Suzuki Nature in Focus Environmental Photography Competition and the 2010 Art Wolfe International Conservation Photography Awards. She has been a finalist in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition several times.
She is a Fellow of the Explorers Club, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of Science Writers.
Watch a film produced by videographer Lesley Spinks who followed Isabelle in the field to document her daily life as a wildlife photographer, travelling in a variety of habitats, land, water, rivers, and the desert, looking for wild creatures, rattlesnakes, shorebirds, snow geese, barn swallows, Pacific salmon, and humpback whales.