Wildlife Photographer of the Year ’21 update

 

VOTE NOW! If you’d like to help my ice-bear image “over the line”, then visit 

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/peoples-choice

and give it a vote! (of course, there’s plenty of images to vote for too!)

In the northern Yukon, even when winter is taking a full grip and the temperatures plummet to -30, a section of the Fishing Branch river never freezes. For the grizzles of the area, this open water provides a final chance before hibernation to gorge on late run salmon as well as a few trout that happen to get within range of a well-placed paw swipe.

This particular image that I took a few years ago, is of a bear called Sophie and was used as part of the suite of pictures I provided for an article put together by the BBC about the bears of the northern Yukon – the “Ice Grizzlies” as they have become known over time.

Now, I’m not really one for entering competitions these days as I find judging them far more fun, but Carrie decided  to prove a point that photographers generally choose the wrong images for contests, and submitted this picture – one of her favourites – to Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021 on my behalf. Needless to say, she was right 🙂 As such, the image you see here I am delighted to say has been nominated for the People’s Award in this blue riband of wildlife photography competitions, along with a dozen others. This category is open to the general public to select their favourites from, whether by visiting the exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, and voting or through the website. Voting opens in December and runs until February apparently, so if you feel so inclined, then do go and put an “x” in the box at the relevant time. Whatever happens, it’s just nice to know that even more people will see this beautiful bear and perhaps, just perhaps, become even more aware of the daily challenges faced by wildlife in that particular part of the world. If that is what people can take from seeing this image, as is the case with all the ones I take, then I will have achieved what I set out to do.