Sharon Boorstin accompanied her husband, documentary filmmaker Paul Boorstin, on wildlife shoots in India, the Amazon, and South Africa for National Geographic TV shows. The experience inspired a love for wildlife that continued in her writing for the Los Angeles Times and her volunteer work as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo. In this virtual safari, Sharon will introduce animals in the order Carnivora—beautiful but fierce predators that include felids such as lions, tigers, and leopards; canids such as wolves and African wild dogs; and ursids from the giant panda to the gigantic Kodiak bear. Like a virtual safari, through slides and videos we will experience these wild animals in their natural habitats, observe their behavior, and learn of the current efforts to prevent their extinction.

Sharon Boorstin is a contributing writer for the Los Angeles Times, specializing in lifestyle, food and travel. In 2019 she won Visit California’s Eureka Award for Best Newspaper Travel Article. In the 1970s and ‘80s Sharon was the Restaurant Critic of the (late) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and in the ‘90s she edited the annual Gayot Guidebooks for Los Angeles and other cities. She also wrote for magazines including Bon Appetit, Smithsonian and Town & Country Travel. With her husband Paul, she wrote dozens of screenplays for feature films and television including Angel of Death (ABC) starring Jane Seymour. Her memoir/cookbook, “Let Us Eat Cake: Adventures in Food and Friendship” (Harper-Collins 2002), was a selection of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club. Raised in Seattle, Washington, Sharon moved to Los Angeles in 1966 after earning a California Lifetime Teaching credential at U.C. Berkeley. She taught high-school History, English and Social Studies in L.A. for 11 years.