Laurent Ballesta / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

‘The Golden Horseshoe’

A tri-spine horseshoe crab moves slowly over the mud. Its golden protective carapace hides 12 appendages. Above the horseshoe crab, a trio of juvenile golden trevallies are poised to dart down for edible morsels plowed up by its passage.
Laurent Ballesta went looking for horseshoe crabs in the protected waters of Pangatalan Island in the Philippines.

Marine biologist and photographer Laurent Ballesta has dedicated his life to exploring the oceans and revealing their wonder through art. He has led a series of major expeditions, all involving scientific mysteries and diving challenges, and all resulting in unprecedented images.

The tri-spine horseshoe crab has survived for more than 300 million years but now faces habitat destruction and overfishing for food and for its blood, used in the development of vaccines. But, in the protected waters off Pangatalan Island, there is hope for its survival.

Agorastos Papatsanis / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Agorastos Papatsanis reveals the magic of a fungus releasing its spores in the forest.

Long fascinated by fungi, Agorastos used his silver photographic umbrella to stop his camera from getting wet and covered his carefully positioned flash with a plastic bag. The colorful touches come from refraction of the light passing through the spore-laden air currents and rain.

Parasol mushrooms release spores from the gills under their cap. Billions of tiny spores travel – usually unseen – in the air currents. Some will land where there is moisture and food, enabling them to grow networks under the forest floor.

Lennart Verheuvel / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Lennart Verheuvel shows the final moments of a beached orca.

Lying on its side in the surf, this orca had only a short time left to live. Initially rescued, it soon was stranded again on the beach and died. A study later revealed that not only was it severely malnourished, it was also extremely sick.

Research shows that orcas in European waters have the world’s highest concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls. These banned chemicals can persist for many years in marine food webs, weakening immune systems and reducing breeding success in whales, porpoises and dolphins.

Mike Korostelev  / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Mike Korostelev reveals a hippopotamus and her two offspring resting in the shallow clear-water lake.

For over two years Mike has been visiting the hippos in this lake and knew they were accustomed to his boat. He spent just 20 seconds under water with them – enough time to get this image from a safe distance and to avoid alarming the mother.

Hippos produce one calf every two to three years. Their slow-growing population is particularly vulnerable to habitat degradation, drought, and illegal hunting for meat and ivory from their teeth

Vishnu Gopal / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Vishnu Gopal records the moment a lowland tapir steps cautiously out of the swampy Brazilian rainforest.

Finding hoofprints on a forest track near his campsite, Vishnu waited nearby. An hour later, the tapir appeared. Using a long exposure and torchlight to capture texture and movement, Vishnu framed the tapir, head turned to the side, as it emerged from the forest.

Lowland tapirs rely on the forest for their diet of fruit and other vegetation and in turn the tapirs act as seed dispersers. This important relationship is threatened by habitat loss, illegal hunting and traffic collisions.

Sriram Murali / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Sriram Murali showcases a night sky and a forest illuminated with fireflies.

Sriram combined fifty 19-second exposures to show the firefly flashes produced over 16 minutes in the forests near his hometown. The firefly flashes start at twilight, with just a few, before the frequency increases and they pulse in unison like a wave across the forest.

Fireflies, which are in fact beetles, are famous for attracting mates using bioluminescence. Darkness is a necessary ingredient in the success of this process. Light pollution affects many nocturnal creatures, but fireflies are especially susceptible.

Amit Eshel / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Amit Eshel witnesses a dramatic cliffside clash between two Nubian ibex.

After hiking to a vantage point on the clifftop, Amit slowly crept closer, using a wide-angle lens to set the action of two clashing Nubian ibex against the dramatic backdrop. The battle lasted for about 15 minutes before one male surrendered, and the pair parted without serious injury.

In the run-up to the mating season, part of the males’ coat darkens, and their neck muscles thicken. Rivals will raise up on their hind legs and ram their heads together. Their horns sometimes break as they collide.

Carmel Bechler / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Carmel Bechler discovered several barn owls in an abandoned concrete building near a busy road.

Returning to where he had spotted a barn owl the previous year, Carmel and his father used the family car as a hide. He made the most of the natural light and used long exposure times to capture the light trails of passing traffic.

Israel has the densest barn-owl population in the world. A national project has provided nesting boxes near agricultural fields, encouraging owls to nest near farmland. Because the owls hunt rodents that eat seeds and crops, this arrangement has reduced the use of pesticides on farms.

Bertie Gregory / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Bertie Gregory tracks a pod of orcas as they prepare to ‘wave wash’ a Weddell seal.

Bertie took two month-long expeditions searching for orcas. ‘We spent every waking minute on the roof of the boat, scanning,’ he says. After battling high winds and freezing conditions, he captured this remarkable behavior with his drone.

These orcas belong to a group that specializes in hunting seals by charging toward the ice, creating a wave that washes the seal into the water. With rising temperatures melting ice floes, seals are spending more time on land, and the behavior of ‘wave washing’ may disappear.

Rachel Bigsby / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Rachel Bigsby frames a gannet pair against the guano-painted curves of sandstone cliffs.

From her boat in turbulent sea swell, Rachel realized that achieving her vision of showcasing gannets set against the towering cliffs would be tricky. But as the boat aligned with the rocks, she spotted this pair ‘isolated on a lower ledge, intertwining their necks and framed by streaks of guano’.

Each summer the Isle of Noss hosts more than 22,000 northern gannets, which return to breed on the ledges carved by the elements. This species was hardest hit by the 2022 avian flu outbreak.

Knut-Sverre / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Knut-Sverre Horn offers a glimpse of kittiwake chicks illuminated in an abandoned factory.

From his vantage point inside an abandoned fish-processing factory, Knut-Sverre kept watch on the black legged kittiwakes tending to their chicks on the windowsill. As midnight approached, the low summer sun struck the north-facing window, sharpening the birds’ silhouettes and giving him the image that he wanted.

Kittiwakes naturally nest on the narrow ledges of high, steep coastal cliffs. Recently numbers have plummeted, and some have headed for urban areas due to shortages of food caused by warming oceans and pollution.

Juan Jesús Gonzalez Ahumada / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Juan Jesús Gonzalez Ahumada watches as toad tadpoles feast on a dead fledgling sparrow.

The drama unfolded near Juan’s home when a newly fledged sparrow launched itself from a nest on his neighbor’s roof and fell into a nearby pond, where it drowned. Juan had to pick his moment to show the tadpole formation and the sparrow’s eye.

Common toad tadpoles have varied diets consisting of algae, vegetation, and tiny swimming invertebrates. As they grow larger, they become more carnivorous so when a banquet like this arrives, they take full advantage.

Karine Aigner / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

‘Big business’

Contestants line up to have their bobcats weighed in the March 2022 West Texas Big Bobcat Contest, the highest-paying predator-hunting contest in the USA. There are a number of prizes, one of which is for the heaviest bobcat. In 2022 the winner of that category took home US$35,530 (around £28,000).

For some people in the USA, hunting wildlife is a pastime. In Texas, while there are strict regulations covering ‘game’ species, certain predators such as bobcats, mountain lions and coyotes have no protection and can be killed at any time and by any means.

In this portfolio, Karine delves deep into the contests and festivals that celebrate the killing of these unprotected and maligned species, exploring their relationship with humans.

Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar shows the devastating path of a new cross-country tourist railway line.

To reach a point from where he could launch his drone, Fernando was guided through four kilometers (2.5 miles) of an underground cave system. The result of his challenging trek was this image.

The government-funded railway line connecting tourist destinations brings economic benefits to Mexico’s southeast, but it also fragments ecosystems, threatens protected reserves and archaeological sites, and impacts Indigenous peoples. While trains are a more environmentally friendly form of transport, conservationists warn of devastating consequences.

Joan de la Malla / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Joan de la Malla provides a bird’s-eye view of the polluted Ciliwung river winding through Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.

To find a time when lower air pollution allowed a clear view, Joan returned to the scene over several days. His image documents one of the most polluted rivers in the world and illustrates the growing global issue of river pollution.

Plastic rubbish, human waste, agricultural fertilizers and factory waste are suffocating the Ciliwung river. As a result, Jakarta’s residents are having to use groundwater for drinking water. This has resulted in widespread subsidence and the city is now sinking.