“We strongly believe humor and positivity have a major role to play in building awareness, interest, and eventually action towards protecting the animals that live on this planet,” Tom said. “Over the years, the competition has focused more and more on the conservation, working with the Born Free Foundation and promoting conservation efforts around the world.”

He continued: “We, without being too preachy, want to get you all, and ourselves, to behave a tiny bit differently towards the world we live in. The smallest effort achieved towards conservation is better than the biggest effort never started!”

Tom was ecstatic about how well this year's competition was turning out. “We expected this year to be a little bit tricky as a result of COVID restrictions. But quite sensationally and against all better judgment, we received the highest number of entries ever, over 7,000—and the standard across the board has gone up incredibly,” Tom shared.

“It has been such a positive response and such an upbeat process to be part of when so many things in 2020 have been so miserable/depressing/disappointing!”

Tom said that the images coming in at such a high volume have kept his and his team’s spirits up and he hopes they’ll do the same for all of us.

“Choosing the finalists was basically an impossible task, our initial shortlist was over 400, which is three times more than it has ever been. If ever there was a year when many could have won this was it and we genuinely feel terribly sorry for those that we couldn't get into the final 44 (which should have been 40 but we just couldn't reject the other 4).”