With extraordinary talent, expert technique and flawlessly captured moments, wildlife photographers offer us an emotional, surprising glimpse of life on Earth.
Under the situation of pervasive human activities, global warming and aggravated environmental pollution, the topic of wildlife protection has become more and more heavy. Devastated habitats, wildlife at risk of extinction... The real scene is always more powerful than the slogan "protect the environment".
Hosted by the British Museum of Natural History, Wildlife Photographer attracts wildlife photographers from all over the world to come up with the best works every year, and this year there are 38,575 participants from 93 countries, and the 2022 winning works are released, let us follow this year's excellent works and enter the world of wildlife.
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The fate of wild animals
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is organised by the Natural History Museum in London, UK, and has been around for 58 years this year. Catching the spiritual moment of catching wild animals requires both hard patience and luck, and photographers, every photo can be said to be hard-won.
Curator Doug Gulr praised the award-winning photographers for giving the public a glimpse
"Unforgettable life in wild, sharing never-before-seen details and fascinating behaviors, and reporting on climate and biodiversity crises on the front lines"
。
Polar bear in the ruins of Kolyutchen Island in the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic
This photo by Russian wildlife photographer Dimitry Kokh was taken on Kolyuchin Island in the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic. He spotted the bears in an abandoned weather station, where photographers couldn't get to the island because the weather was bad that day, and took the photos with a low-noise drone.
Bears, who usually live alone, usually migrate north in summer as the sea ice recedes, and they depend on preying on seals.
Climate change seems to have changed the habits of polar bears, and about 20 polar bears live in this abandoned building.
The mountain gorilla died in the arms of a ranger
This photo shows the mountain gorilla Ndakasi dying in the arms of its caregiver, ranger Andre Bauma. Brent Stirton, a well-known news photographer, took this photo on September 26, 2021.
Mountain gorilla Nda Kasi went viral because of this selfie.
The mountain gorilla is an endangered and rare animal known as the "gentle giant" because of its docile character. Born in 2007 in Congo's Virunga National Park, Ndakasi was the only survivor when his family was shot dead by local militia when he was two months old.
Since then he has lived in the Mountain Gorilla Rescue Center.
In 2019, he and another orphaned mountain gorilla appeared in a ranger's selfie and became star animals.
Ndakasi was 14 when he died.
The sloth's dilemma
Photographer Suzi Eszterhas meets a sloth and a dog in the Puerto Viejo de Talamanka in Costa Rica.
The brown-throated sloth encountered a large dog while trying to reach a clump of trees. Sloths live in trees and rarely go down to the ground. With habitat loss and fragmentation of forests, they are forced to make dangerous trips in urbanized areas in search of food, suitable habitat.
Disappearing giraffes
Portuguese photographer Jose Fragozo captures the contrast between the natural world and human infrastructure.
Here, a giraffe is obscured by the huge pillars of Kenya's new Standard Gauge Railway. Although this section of the railway through Nairobi National Park is erected on huge pillars that allow animals to enter from below, the photo symbolizes that space for wildlife is being squeezed.
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Small world, big charm
Zooming in closer, the photographer's macro probe lens brings those tiny creatures to life.
Buzzing cactus bee
American photographer Karine Aigner was announced as the 2022 Wildlife Photographer of the Year for this photo, and she is the fifth female photographer in the competition's 58-year history to win the top award.
Photographer Karine Aigner captured this beautifully composed close-up on a hot Texas beach using a macro probe lens to get close to the subject, a colony of spinning cactus bees. "The moment when a group of male bees compete with each other in order to mate with a female bee. A few minutes later, the pair in the center of the buzzing ball flew away together.
Behind this powerful photo is the desperation of species threatened by climate change, pesticides and habitat loss.
Tree frog pool party
Photographer Güell wades through the murky waters of the Osa Peninsula, where a flock of male gliding tree frogs calls. At dawn, thousands of females come to the pool to mate and lay their eggs on dangling palm leaves. Unmated males look for females here to mate.
Underwater wonderland
Finnish photographer: Tiina Törmänen, who excites her when she encounters a school of curious European bass during her annual snorkeling in Lake Hunkaranpi.
In the past three years, she has only found dead fish. She froze the sight of fish flying among pink clouds of algae.
Although it creates a beautiful scene, due to climate changes and warming waters, algae overgrowth can cause problems for aquatic wildlife
, because it consumes oxygen and blocks sunlight.
The beauty of whale baleen
The work is titled "The Beauty of Whale Baleen". This photo was taken by Katanyou Wuttichaitanakorn, a young photographer from Thailand.
The 16-year-old photographer caught a sardines leaping out of the water to escape being swallowed by a Bryde's whale
。 In the picture, the pink palate, tentacle texture and gray skin of the Bryde's whale give people a strong visual shock.
Feel the shock of nature
African Wildlife Photo Exhibition
Nature conservation is an important part of building a community of life on earth. The Institute for Sustainable Global Environment (GEI) and the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) held the "China-Africa Biodiversity Conservation Science Popularization Campaign" in Kunming and Beijing, with special attention and support from LOHAS magazine.
As an important part of a series of science popularization activities (Kunming Station),
"You and Me Are Nature: Mkapa African Wildlife Photography Exhibition" will be on display at Kunming Zoo until December 31
。
This photo exhibition is the first stop in the series of "China-Africa Biodiversity Conservation Science Popularization Activities" held in Kunming and Beijing (Kunming Station).
79 photographic works selected by the winners of the first "Mkapa African Wildlife Photo Contest" in 2021 selected from more than 9,000 entries by photographers from more than 50 countries around the world were exhibited.
Works depict from African leopards to gorillas; From Kilimanjaro to the offshore of South Africa; From protecting heroes to volunteers; From Africa to China, the beauty of nature and conservation will show people the most magnificent side of nature.
I hope that through these powerful award-winning photographs and the stories behind them, we hope that more people will participate in documenting and protecting wildlife and their habitats.
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