Over 49,000 images were submitted to the 56th annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, put on by the Natural History Museum in London. The Duchess of Cambridge and Patron of the museum, Kate Middleton, announced the Grand Title Winner during the live-streamed ceremony which aired on October 13th.
Sergey Gorshkov spent over 11 months on his overall winning image, ‘The Embrace,’ depicting the rare sighting of an Amur tigress hugging a Manchurian fir. ‘Hunted to the verge of extinction in the past century, the Amur population is still threatened by poaching and logging today. The remarkable sight of the tigress immersed in her natural environment offers us hope, as recent reports suggest numbers are growing from dedicated conservation efforts,’ says Dr. Tim Littlewood – Natural History Museum’s Executive Director of Science.
All winning images will be showcased in an exhibition at the Natural History Museum, starting October 16th. Entries for the next Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition are open on Tuesday, October 19th.
