\u201cVoters will have a challenge to choose from this stunning range of photographs which tell vital stories and connect people to issues across the planet,\u201d says Dr Douglas Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum, London. \u201cWe are looking forward to finding out which of these images emerges as the favourite.\u201d<\/p>\n
The top five images will be displayed online, joining the winners of the fifty-eighth competition announced earlier this year and chosen by an esteemed panel of judges. The winner will be showcased in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year voting screens at the Museum until the exhibition closes Sunday 2 July 2023.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London (NHM). The competition was originally founded in 1965 by\u00a0BBC Wildlife Magazine<\/em>, then called\u00a0Animals<\/em>. The NHM joined forces in 1984 to create the competition as it is known today, and now solely runs and owns it.<\/p>\n Vote online for the winner of the People\u2019s Choice Award on\u00a0the NHM website<\/a>, and closes at 2pm (GMT) on Thursday 2nd February 2023.<\/p>\n The fifty-ninth Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is now open for entries and closes at 11.30am GMT on Thursday 8th December 2022.<\/p>\n Entrants to the adult competition may enter up to 25 images for a \u00a330 fee, which increases to \u00a335 in the final week of the entry period from 11.30am GMT 1st December to 11.30am GMT 8 December.<\/p>\n An entry fee waiver has been introduced for photographers entering the adult competition who live in 50 listed countries.<\/p>\n Entrants aged 17 and under may enter up to 10 images for free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Spotted hyenas are intelligent and opportunistic animals. On the outskirts of cities such as Harar in Ethiopia, they take advantage of what humans leave behind, including bones and rotting meat. In so doing, the hyenas keep disease at bay, and in exchange the Harar locals tolerate them, even leaving them butcher\u2019s scraps.<\/p>\n These hyenas are from the family group known as the Highway Clan. To photograph them, Sam set up a remote camera by a roadkill carcass. He captured the lowest-ranking member of the clan after the dominant members, visible in the background, had sauntered off.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Harar, Ethiopia In South Africa\u2019s Kruger National Park, in the vicinity of a rest camp, Richard discovered a flock of crested guineafowl that were not as flighty as normal and allowed him to follow them as they foraged.<\/p>\n One of the guineafowl started to scratch another\u2019s head and ear, and the recipient stood there motionless for a few moments with its mouth open and eyes wide, as if to say \u2018that\u2019s the spot, keep going\u2019. Richard muses, \u2018It\u2019s not often you get to capture emotion in the faces of birds . . . but there was no doubt \u2013 that was one satisfied guineafowl!\u2019<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Kruger National Park, Mpumalanga, South Africa Eladio set out to highlight the plight of the endangered American eel. Caught in its juvenile stage, as glass eels, it is exported in the millions each year to fulfil an insatiable Asian \u2013 particularly Japanese \u2013 demand. On the coast of the Dominican Republic, over five months, hundreds of fishermen gather around the estuaries from dawn to dusk to catch the little eels.<\/p>\n These larvae have migrated from the Sargasso Sea, where the adult eels spawn. With the species in steep decline, the US fishery is now tightly controlled, leaving the Caribbean to take over as the major exporter but without regulations. The image took Eladio many nights of trial and error, using a long exposure to catch the precise moment that the fishermen raised their nets out of the incoming waves.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> El Limon River, El Limon, Dominican Republic Two females and a male golden snub-nosed monkey huddle together to keep warm in the extreme winter cold. Threatened mainly by forest loss and fragmentation, this endangered species is confined to central China. Restricted to living high up in the temperate forests, these monkeys \u2013 here in the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province \u2013 feed mostly in the trees, on leaves, bark, buds and lichen.<\/p>\n Minqiang knew the area where a troop of monkeys often rested and, in heavy wind and snow, he walked up the mountain for almost an hour carrying his photographic equipment. Photographing from a slope opposite the tree in which the group was huddled, he stayed put for half an hour in temperatures of -10\u00b0C (14\u00b0F) before he was able to achieve this eye-level composition.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Qinling Mountains, China Claudio was lying down on the mud a safe distance from a breeding colony of Caribbean, or American, flamingos<\/a>, in R\u00eda Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, on the Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula, Mexico. It was June and the flamingo chicks had already left their nests and were in cr\u00e8ches. These cr\u00e8ches are always guarded by adult birds, so when the chicks began to approach Claudio, the adults surrounded them and gently headed them back into the colony.<\/p>\n Although flamingo population numbers are stable, they are highly sensitive to changes in the environment, such as flooding of their nesting sites, and it is unclear how they will cope with the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Ria Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Yucatan, Mexico View a gallery of flamingo images<\/a> from Claudio Contreras Koob\u2019s book.<\/p>\n The frenzied combat between the pompilid wasp and the ornate Ctenus<\/em> spider suddenly stopped. An intense calm invaded the scene, said Roberto, who had been watching the battle unfold in the Peruvian jungle of Tambopata.<\/p>\n The image shows the wasp checking the spider to confirm if its sting has paralyzed the dangerous prey, before dragging it back to its brood nest. Wasps of the Pompilidae family are called spider wasps because the females specialize in hunting spiders, which are used as living food for their offspring.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Tambopata, Madre de Dios, Peru Hanging in a shed this stuffed cat skin may at first appear like the other objects, inconsequential, but the colourful yarns tied to it reveal it is not merely a disused item. The relationship between the Andean cat and its human neighbours is complex.<\/p>\n Though the cats are celebrated as mountain guardians, they are also considered good luck for the fertility of livestock, and for this they are killed and sometimes worn during ceremonies to induce an abundant year. This stuffed specimen turned out to be the closest Sebastian would come to South America\u2019s most endangered wild cat.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Abra Granada, Andes, Argentina Martin watched this polar bear<\/a> cub playing in a mass of fireweed on the coast of Hudson Bay, Canada. Every so often the cub would take a break from its fun, stand on its hind legs and poke its head up above the high flowers to look for its mother.<\/p>\n Wanting to capture the world from the cub\u2019s angle, Martin placed his camera \u2013 in an underwater housing, for protection against investigating bears \u2013 at ground level among the fireweed<\/a>. He then waited patiently a safe distance away with a remote trigger. Not being able to see exactly what was happening, Martin had to judge just the right moment when the bear would pop up in the camera frame.<\/p>\n Location:<\/strong> Churchill, Manitoba, CanadaMore on Wildlife Photographer of the Year:\u00a0<\/h4>\n
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022 \u2013 People\u2019s Choice Award<\/h2>\n
Hyena highway by Sam Rowley, UK<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Sam-Rowley-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-7603a37.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>That\u2019s the spot! By Richard Flack, South Africa<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Richard-Flack-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-4165a56.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Fishing for glass eels by Eladio Fernandez, Dominican Republic<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Eladio-Fernandez-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-deef1fe.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C378"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>A golden huddle by Minqiang Lu, China<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Minqiang-Lu-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-c0d0d9d.jpg?quality=90&resize=563%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Caribbean cr\u00e8che by Claudio Contreras Koob, Mexico<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Claudio-Contreras-Koob-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-34d9308.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Wasp attack by Roberto Garc\u00eda-Roa, Spain<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Roberto-Garcia-Roa-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-6c4a5fd.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Unlucky for the cat by Sebastian Kennerknecht, USA<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Sebastian-Kennerknecht-1-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-12b7796.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Among the flowers by Martin Gregus, Canada<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/11\/Martin-Gregus-Wildlife-Photographer-of-the-Year-e3dc143.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C335"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The elusive golden cat by Sebastian Kennerknecht, USA<\/h3>\n