Shortlist revealed for Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award
Voting is now open for the 57th annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year's People’s Choice Award. Organised by London's Natural History Museum, winners in the competition were announced in October .
The 25 images shortlisted come from a massive pool of over 50,000 images entered by photographers from 95 counties.
Voting for the People's Choice Award closes on 2 February, 2022.
If you'd like to enter the 58th annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, hurry as entires close 9 December.
Vote for the winner of the People’s Choice Award at this link . Shortlisted images © Andy Skillen (UK ). The ice bear cometh … It is a two-hour helicopter ride from the nearest town to this spot on the Fishing Branch River in Yukon, Canada – a location where the river never freezes however cold it gets. The salmon run occurs in the late autumn here and for the grizzly bears of the area this open water offers a final chance to feast before hibernating. © Antonio Liebana Navarro (Spain). Lynx cub licking . Iberian lynx are one of the world’s most endangered cats due to habitat loss, decreasing food sources, car hits and illegal hunting. But thanks to conservation efforts the species is recovering and can be found in small areas of Portugal and Spain. Navarro captured this image while leading a conservation project based around photography in Peñalajo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain. © Ashleigh McCord (USA ). Shelter from the rain . During a visit to the Maasai Mara, Kenya, McCord captured this tender moment between a pair of male lions. At first, she had been taking pictures of only one of the lions, and the rain was just a light sprinkle, although the second had briefly approached and greeted his companion before choosing to walk away. But as the rain turned into a heavy downpour, the second male returned and sat, positioning his body as if to shelter the other. Shortly after they rubbed faces and continued to sit nuzzling for some time. © Cristiano Vendramin (Italy). Lake of ice . Santa Croce Lake is a natural lake located in the province of Belluno, Italy. In winter 2019, Vendramin noticed the water was unusually high and the willow plants were partially submerged, creating a play of light and reflections. Waiting for colder conditions, he captured the scene in icy stillness. © Dhritiman Mukherjee (India). Living together . For Dhritiman, Bhutan is an amazing place. He loves how most of the people try to live together with nature. Satyr tragopans, a rare species of Asian pheasant, are widely hunted for food and plumage, and are normally skittish and very shy. But in this village near Punakha, the birds appear at ease and perfectly relaxed in the presence of the people who live there. © Ernane Junior (Brazil). Jaguar of ashes . The year 2020 saw fires in Brazil's Pantanal wetlands more than double compared to the year before – ‘a year never to be forgotten’ saysJunio . More than 26% of the total area was affected, and the situation in Encontros das Águas State Park was even worse, with roughly 80% burnt. © Jaime Rojo (Spain). Dolphin hug . Rojo watched on as Federico Mosquera, a biologist from the Omacha Foundation, Colombia, soothed an Amazon river dolphin. These dolphins are extremely tactile animals and direct contact calms them – keeping them hydrated when out of the water is also extremely important. The team from Omacha and WWF were transporting the dolphin to a temporary veterinarian facility in Puerto Nariño, Colombia, to install a GPS tag in its dorsal fin. © Jan Leßmann (Germany) . Blackbird backyard . Leßmann took great pleasure in watching this blackbird from his front door, in his home-town of Greifswald, Germany. It was spring and the blackbird had chosen an old garden hut in which to build her nest. Quietly and secretly she raised her young in this garden idyll. © Javier Aznar González de Rueda (Spain). Building an egg case . While out on a night walk in the Amazon rainforest near Tena, Ecuador, de Rueda spotted this little female thorned heart orb weaver spider delicately constructing her egg case. Hanging from a strong silk thread, these female spiders spend hours encasing their eggs in a silken cocoon, which may contain up to several hundred eggs. © Jeroen Hoekendijk (The Netherlands) .The eagle and the bear . Black bear cubs will often climb trees, where they wait safely for their mother to return with food. Here, in the depths of the temperate rainforest of Anan in Alaska, this little cub decided to take an afternoon nap on a moss-covered branch under the watchful eye of a juvenile bald eagle. © Jo-Anne McArthur (Canada) . Hope in a burned plantation . McArthur flew to Australia in early 2020 to document the stories of animals affected by the devastating bushfires that were sweeping through the states of New South Wales and Victoria. Working exhaustively alongside Animals Australia (an animal protection organisation) she was given access to burn sites, rescues and veterinary missions. This eastern grey kangaroo and her joey pictured near Mallacoota, Victoria, were among the lucky ones. © Joan de la Malla (Spain ).The future in her hands . Due to overexploitation – industrial logging and land clearing for plantation development – the rainforests of Borneo are disappearing fast. Because of this, endemic species like the orangutan are suffering and dying because of habitat loss and are under serious threat. International Animal Rescue conducts the laudable task of rehabilitating orphaned or injured orangutans. © Karl Samitsch (Austria) .The jump . Samitsch was in the Cairngorms, Scotland, with a friend who took him to a forest where red squirrels were used to being fed. They placed hazelnuts on opposite branches of two trees and Karl then positioned his camera on a tripod between the branches facing the direction a squirrel might jump. © Lucas Bustamante (Ecuador ). Life in black and white . Dozens of plains zebra had showed up to drink at Okaukuejo waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia – a popular location for the animals of the area to quench their thirst caused by the searing heat of the sun. Packed closely together and moving as one, the zebra lowered their heads to get water and, almost immediately, robotically lifted them again to scan for danger. © Ly Dang (USA ). All together . The Clark’s grebes on Ly’s local lake in San Diego, California, USA, hadn’t nested for a few years, and he wasn’t sure if the unusually hot and dry weather they’d been experiencing was to blame. Then in 2017 California had twice its normal annual rainfall. With the lakes full, the grebes started to build nests and lay eggs again. They build floating nests at the edge of shallow water among the reeds or rushes. © Marco Gaiotti (Italy). Breath of an Arctic fox . Gaiotti was watching this little Arctic fox as it incessantly called another nearby. Gradually he noticed the fox’s wet breath was quickly freezing in the air after each call. It was late winter in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, and the cold arctic air was -35°C (-31°F). Photographing arctic foxes is often frustrating, as they are normally running around fast in search of food, but this one was very relaxed and let Gaiotti get close enough to focus on it, with the light glowing perfectly in the background. © Maxime Aliaga (France). Stay close . Taking care of a young orangutan requires a lot of energy. Aliaga spent more than one hour observing this mother in the Pinus Jantho Nature Reserve of Sumatra, Indonesia, trying to keep her excitable baby with her in the nest. Since 2011 the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program has released more than 120 confiscated apes into the reserve. © Michiel Van Noppen (The Netherlands). Peek a boo . Van Noppen took this photo of Dantita, as she is fondly known, at the foothills of Braulio Carrillo National Park, close to San José in central Costa Rica. The Baird’s tapir or ‘gardeners of the forest’ are extremely important to their natural habitat, with some seeds only germinating after passing through the tapir. © Minghui Yuan (China ). Working together . There were several big trees near Minghui’s hotel in the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Yunnan Province, China, and he’d noticed green tree ants on the trunks and was fascinated by their behaviour. This species of ant builds its nest in the tree crown, are ferocious by nature and good at catching all kinds of insects. © Peter Delaney (Ireland /South Africa ). Bonds of love . Delaney looked on as a herd of elephants closed ranks, pushing their young into the middle of the group for protection. A bull elephant had been trying to separate a newborn calf from its mother. Delaney was photographing the herd in Addo Elephant Reserve, South Africa, when the newborn let out a shriek. The herd reacted instantly – blowing loud calls, flapping ears and then surrounding the young and reaching out their trunks for reassurance. © Qiang Guo (China). Dancing in the snow . In the Lishan Nature Reserve in Shanxi Province, China, Guo watched as two male golden pheasants continuously swapped places on this trunk – their movements akin to a silent dance in the snow. © Thomas Peschak (Germany/South Africa ). Meercats put on a pose . This group of meerkats in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa has been habituated to humans for over a decade, and is very relaxed around people. In fact, they mostly completely ignored Thomas’s presence, being way too preoccupied with lounging, hunting, grooming and fighting. © Wim van den Heever (South Africa) . Hitching a ride . A female giant anteater was foraging around a huge open plain very late one afternoon in the Pantanal, Brazil, when van den Heever suddenly noticed she had a youngster on her back. He instinctively grabbed his camera and slowly crept up to a termite mound in the distance, which was in the general direction she was moving in. © Yung Sen Wu (Taiwan). Barracudas . It was the schooling barracudas at Blue Corner, Palau, in the western Pacific, that grabbed Wu’s attention while diving in the turquoise seascape. He had been swimming with them for four days, but their formation constantly changed shape and he could not find the perfect angle. On the fifth day his luck changed when the fish seemed to accept him into the group. Surrounded by the barracudas, he started to imagine how one fish sees another while swimming, and this was the picture he wanted. © Zhang Qiang (China) . Monkey cuddle. Qiang was visiting China’s Qinling Mountains to observe the behaviour of the Sichuan snub-nosed monkey. The mountains' temperate forests are the endangered monkeys’ only habitat, which in itself is under threat from forest disturbance.
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