A hyena prowling an abandoned mining town and a beetle perched to witness the destruction of its forest habitat are the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
The two grand prize winners and the winners of 19 categories were announced Wednesday by the Natural History Museum in London, which has run the competition for 61 years.
South African wildlife photographer Wim van den Heever took the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year with Ghost town visitorA night photograph of a brown hyena among the ruins of an abandoned diamond mining town in Kolmanskop, Namibia. The species passes through on its way to the Namib Desert coast to hunt Cape fur seal pups.
Van den Heever saw the tracks of the world’s rarest hyena in Kolmanskop a decade ago and dreamed of capturing this scene. He spoke to a local security guard, who told him the animals stopped by approximately every four to six weeks. “Every time I visited the ghost town, I would set up camera traps in the hopes of success,” he recalled in his description of the photo. “It took me 10 years to finally get this single image of a brown hyena in the most perfect frame imaginable. “I was elated.”
Andrea Dominizi from Italy won the title of Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year with “After the Destruction.” It’s a close-up of a longhorn beetle on a moss-covered log overlooking an abandoned machine from a logging operation in the Lepini Mountains of central Italy.
Nanaimo, British Columbia photographer Shane Gross, who won the big title of the competition last yearwas the only Canadian winner of the category in 2025, capturing “Animals in their Environment”, with his photography. Like an eel out of water.
Gross said he took the photo while on duty for the nonprofit Save Our Seas Foundation on D’Arros Island in the Seychelles archipelago in Africa. The island was recently established as a “no-take” marine protected area, where fishing or even seashell collecting is not permitted.
The goal was to document changes before and after protection, the impact of restoration to replace coconut plantations with native vegetation, and the work of scientists to monitor changes.
While the area is rich in wildlife such as sharks, manta rays, nesting sea turtles, seabirds and even giant tortoises that are being reintroduced, Gross acknowledged that these animals have been widely photographed.
So when he first arrived, he asked scientists to show him something unique. They pointed out the splashed moray eels that were gliding along the shore to scavenge for dead fish that had washed up at low tide.
“I thought, ‘Wow, that’s something I’ve never seen before,'” he recalled, and set out to capture the tiny eels, which are no more than two fingers thick. The animals ended up being extremely shy and it took him almost the entire expedition to get the photo he wanted.
Gross said the eels often found fish larger than themselves and, lacking arms, had trouble biting off chunks. Some would tie themselves into knots or rely on each other to take advantage. He became captivated by the fish’s remarkable ability to see and smell its prey both above and below the water.
He hopes the photo will allow viewers to admire an animal that “isn’t on most people’s radar.”
Many marine protected areas allow fishing, he said, and are often established to protect specific species such as sharks or sea turtles. He thinks that’s not enough: “Species need an ecosystem to live.” While on D’Arros Island, he observed the interdependence and connection of the species that lived there; for example, seabirds that hunt fish in the sea and then transport those nutrients over land, fertilizing plants with their guano.
A no-take marine protected area takes this into account and “protects everything from top to bottom,” he said, including animals we don’t think about, like eels.
The winning photographs are among 100 chosen from more than 60,000 photographs that will be displayed in an exhibition opening at the Natural History Museum in London this Friday.
Canadians will be able to see them in person at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto from November 8, 2025 to March 29, 2026.
