The Final 25 Images of Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award 2024

Nov 26, 2024

Matt Growcoot

A Cape porcupine with its quills fully fanned stands beside a baby porcupine in dry grasslands. The adult's quills are strikingly long and patterned in black and white, while the baby has shorter, sparser quills. — A bloodied yet determined honey badger returns to finish off a Cape porcupine, which earlier had tried to defend itself in Botswana. | David Northall / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Animal lovers are being asked to vote for their favorite picture for this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award.

The amazing set of 25 photos includes a determined honey badger with a face full of spikey quills from a porcupine, a beluga whale exfoliating its skin, and a scientist dressed as a whooping crane in Louisiana.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. To vote for your favorite photo, head to the museum’s website where you can cast your vote. A selection of the images are below.

A barn owl flies out of a dark, weathered barn with an open window under a cloudy sky. The owl is centrally positioned and its wings are spread wide, contrasting against the barn's wooden structure. — A ghostly barn owl exits the hayloft window of a derelict barn to hunt in fields outside Vancouver, Canada. | Jess Findlay / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A brown seabird skims the surface of the water while a polar bear swims close behind. The bird's wings are slightly raised, and water splashes up around its feet as it moves. The polar bear appears partially submerged with its focus on the bird. — A polar bear cub attempts an underwater surprise attack on a northern fulmar. | Erlend Haarberg / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

An owl sits calmly on a branch while a vibrant blue roller bird swoops above it against a blurred green background. — A European roller defends its territory from a bemused-looking little owl in Kiskunság National Park, Hungary. | Bence Máté / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A small elephant shrew with a long nose and large ears walks on fallen leaves in a forest. It's surrounded by trees and plants, with sunlight filtering through the leaves in the background. — A rarely seen four-toed sengi forages for food among the leaf litter in Mozambique. | Piotr Naskrecki / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A person in bird-like camouflage interacts with a whooping crane by a wetland. They wear a white cloak and hood, concealing their face, and bend slightly towards the crane, which stands tall with bands on its leg. Trees and water are in the background. — A disguised biologist approaches an endangered whooping crane in Louisiana, USA. Michael has been chronicling the lives of endangered whooping cranes since early 2019. The biologist acted with cat-like quickness to check the bird’s health and change a transmitter that was no longer working. The transmitter helps biologists track these non-migratory birds and learn more about them. This experimental population was reintroduced in Bayou Country in 2011. In the 1940s there were roughly 20 whooping cranes in the region. Since then, numbers have climbed to over 800. | Michael Forsberg / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A chimpanzee sits on a tree branch surrounded by lush green leaves in a dense forest. The scene is peaceful, with soft lighting filtering through the foliage, highlighting the chimpanzee's face and the natural environment. — A chimpanzee pauses and looks down as its family moves across the forest floor of Loango National Park, Gabon. | Nora Milligan / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A snowy landscape features a line of six wolves walking in single file across the vast white expanse. In the foreground, a cluster of bare trees stands, contrasting starkly against the snow. — Four grey wolves cross a minimalist landscape of naked aspens and snow in Yellowstone National Park, USA. | Devon Pradhuman / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A large bird of prey, with wings spread, approaches a small lizard on a sandy surface. The bird has brown and gray plumage, and the lizard appears upright, possibly in a defensive stance. The background is out of focus, providing a natural setting. — A giant ground gecko stands fast against a pale chanting goshawk in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa. | Willie Burger van Schalkwyk / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Five wild dogs sit in a row on a grassy field in front of a tall green crop. The background is slightly blurred, emphasizing the animals' alert posture. — Members of an Indian wolf pack pause briefly as they play in fields in Bhigwan, India. | Arvind Ramamurthy / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A Weddell seal resting on ice, surrounded by snow and distant icebergs under a cloudy sky in an Antarctic setting. — A dramatic blue-grey sky highlights the soft greys of a Weddell seal as it rests on an ice floe. | Sue Flood / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Two beluga whales swim closely together in the ocean, their white bodies partially submerged and tails slightly raised above the water's surface, against a background of a blurred horizon. — A beluga whale rubs its underside on a shallow river bottom to exfoliate its skin. | Mark Williams / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A young cheetah sits on a concrete floor, tied by ropes at the neck against a red corrugated metal wall. Its expression appears tense and confined. — A young cheetah cub hisses while waiting to be sold in Ethiopia. Captured from her home plains in the Somali Region, she was transported for several days on the back of a camel to the northern coast of Somaliland. Illegal wildlife trafficking is a problem in the Somali Region. Farmers catch and sell cheetah cubs to traffickers, claiming that the cheetahs attack their livestock. Sometimes the farmers and traffickers cannot sell the cubs immediately. The bigger the cheetahs get, the harder it is to find buyers. Some end up being killed and their parts sold, their bones shipped to Yemen and then to other Asian markets. They are then sold as tiger bones and used to make Chinese bone wine. After hissing at the camera, the cub started chirping, calling out for its mother. | Jose Fragozo / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A badger walks along a path at night, looking up at a wall with a stencil of a badger holding guns. A sign above the badger reads, "Keep access clear at all times." A metal pole is visible on the left. — An ambling Eurasian badger appears to glance up at badger graffiti on a quiet road in St Leonards-on-Sea, England, UK. | Ian Wood / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A cougar stands on a rocky outcrop in the foreground, with the dramatic, snow-capped peaks of the Andes mountains shrouded in mist in the background under a cloudy sky. — A puma stands on a windswept outcrop in the rugged mountain terrain of Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. | Aaron Baggenstos / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Vote for your favorite photo here.

Update 11/27: A previous version of this article incorrectly credited Ian Wood as the creator of the honey badger photo. It was taken by David Northall.

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