Bob Whitney was born in Long Beach, California on October 29, 1947.   He grew up in California and lived there during the time he was able to go see concerts with musicians like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Janice Joplin.  It was also the time of the draft and in 1968, he was drafted into the Army and was stationed in the Canal Zone in Panama where he and I met and married.   When he was discharged from the Army we moved to California, where he started his career with the California Department of Forestry as a Firefighter.   He worked for the Department of Forestry for 32 years retiring as a Fire Captain in 2000.   In 2003, Bob and I moved to Port Townsend, Washington.

After we moved to Washington, we spent a lot of time traveling to locations where we could photograph wildlife, which was one of Bob’s passions.  Yellowstone National Park was one of our favorite locations and we spent many weeks there viewing and photographing wolves, bears, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, coyotes, bison, otters, birds and any other critters we could find.  In 2010, we were lucky enough to make a trip to Alaska and made it up the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay in the Arctic Circle. We also made it to Denali National Park during that trip.  We saw musk ox, caribou, moose, grizzly bear, and a lot of new birds.

Bob also did a lot of bird photography at Point Wilson here in Port Townsend.   He had  photographs published in several books and donated use of his photographs to museums and other wildlife organizations for use to further conservation and public awareness of our wildlife. You can see more of his photos on   www.flickr.com/photos/rlw

Bob passed away suddenly the night before a planned fishing trip on April 8, 2015 in Westport, Washington.   I miss him.

Sincerely, Diana Whitney