Born to leaders in conservation and education, Ann Wiley grew up in Seattle in the great Evergreen State of Washington.  The abundance of outside activities offered by this area directed her interest to nature and the appreciation of it.  With time this grew and blossomed into what we at Dragonfly Expeditions appreciate as a truly dedicated and compassionate conservationist, guide, and friend.

Before attending college, Ann spent a year in Vail, Colorado where she worked and skied every day.  She graduated with a degree in Business Economics from the University of Arizona in Tucson where she also fell in love with the desert and biking.

Next, Ann moved on to Back Bay, Boston Massachusetts where she worked for two years as the House Manager for Hippocrates Health Institute under the directorship of Dr. Ann Wigmore.  This extraordinary opportunity allowed Ann to participate not only in cutting edge nutritional practices based on a vegan, raw food diet, but also to witness how the body will heal itself when given proper nutrition and allowed to cleanse and detoxify. While living in Boston Ann made good use of her weekends camping, hiking and exploring the mountains, coastlines and towns of New England.

Shortly after moving to South Florida in 1984, Naturalist Ann had the fortune to participate in the Sea Turtle Hatchery Program on Key Biscayne.  This experience left a lasting impression on Ann and has helped define a great deal of her free time and conservation efforts to this day.  Since, she has participated in various other sea turtle programs staying out all night during turtle hatching season to ensure the hatchlings go to the ocean rather than the bright light of the land. Among the organizations she volunteered with is the Caribbean Conservation Corporation’s Green Sea Turtle program in Toruguerro, Costa Rica.  Her commitment and enthusiasm has led her to recently pioneer the development of a new tour for Dragonfly Expeditions to present the sea turtle’s magnificence, tenacity, plight and nesting habits.

Ann’s love for sea turtles equally compares to the love she has for her family.  She currently lives on the New River in Fort Lauderdale with her two dogs Trooper the Tico and Taya Maria, cat Patch, and a variety of birds that frequent her yard including painted buntings and spot-breasted orioles.  She is unlikely to talk for more than 10 minutes without mention of some avian variety she had the joy of seeing that day or another comparable story of her affection for the wild.  I have to say my favorite recent story was that of the house she built to protect the squirrel monkeys on the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens property where she is a volunteer.

By now everyone should wonder, as we do, how Ann has time to work as a guide at all given her penchant for volunteer work, birding, and I haven’t even mentioned scuba diving and transatlantic sailing!  Somehow she finds the time for all and we are quite thankful as Ann has been a prominent member of the Dragonfly Expeditions guide team since 2005.  Aside from contributing a valued opinion to the development and operation of tours Ann also leads a great number of them.  She continually encourages everyone around her to keep learning and appreciating the intricacies of human nature and the natural world around us.  There is no other person quite like Ann.