‘You lose faith in humanity to some extent’: Story behind wildlife photo of the year

THE photo that took out the top prize for best wildlife photo of 2017 has a heartbreaking story behind it. Warning: Graphic

WARNING: Graphic content

A HEARTBREAKING photo of a black rhino bull who fell victim to the illegal international trade in rhino horn has been dubbed the grand title winner of the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards.

The confronting image was taken by photographer Brent Stirton at South Africa’s Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park took out the top prize, awarded by the Natural History Museum of London.

The poachers responsible were suspected to have come from a local community and believed to be working to a pre-order. After entering the reserve illegally, they ambushed the rhino at a waterhole, shooting it dead and sawing off its horn before fleeing from the animal’s mutilated body.

The picture was taken as part of an undercover investigation into the illegal trade in rhino horn. Picture: Brent Stirton/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/NHM

Mr Stirton visited more than 30 sites at which animals had been killed to produce an series unnerving of photos.

“My first child is going to be born in February; I’m 48. And I think I left it such a long time because I kind of lost faith in a lot of the work we see as photojournalists. You lose faith in humanity to some extent,” he told the BBC.

“For me to win this, for the jury to acknowledge this kind of picture — it’s illustrative that we are living in a different time now, that this is a real issue. The sixth age of extinction is a reality and rhinos are just one of many species that we are losing at a hugely accelerated rate and I am grateful that the jury would choose this image because it gives this issue another platform.”

Among the other winners included Australian photographer Justin Gilligan, for his unlikely snap of an Octopus among a sea of crabs which took out the “Behaviour: Invertebrates” category.

The picture is titled “Crab Surprise”. Picture: Justin Gilligan/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/NHM

Mr Gilligan was documenting an artificial reef experiment for the University of Tasmania when the army of crabs appeared, with an octopus acting “like an excited child in a candy store,” as it chose its final catch.

“An aggregation of crabs the size of a football field wandered through the experiment and we had no idea why,” he said.

Other winners included a gorgeous photo of an American red fox in Yellowstone National Park in the United States taken by Ashleigh Scully, which won top prize in the 11 to 14-year-old category.

The youngster named the photo “Stuck”. Picture: Ashleigh Scully/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/NHM

The teen photographer spotted the female fox hunting from the back seat of a car so she grabbed her camera, rested it on the window frame and shot a series of the fox “mousing”, diving nose first into the snow.

In her words, the photo “illustrates the harsh reality of winter life in Yellowstone.”

Click through the gallery below to see the full list of winners:

2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Winners

VIEW GALLERY