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Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Awarded for	Wildlife photography
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	The Natural History Museum
First awarded	1964
Currently held by	Laurent Ballesta
Website	http://www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is an annual international wildlife photography competition staged by the Natural History Museum in London, England. There is an exhibition of the winning and commended images each year at the museum, which later tours around the world. The event has been described as the most prestigious wildlife photography competition in the world.

It was known as BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year from 1990 to 2003, and briefly as Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Kodak Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The first competition was held in 1964, with three categories and around 600 entries. In 2008 the competition received over 32,000 entries from 3100 photographers in 82 countries.

A book of winning entries and runners-up has been published each year since 1992, with two books being published in 1994 (the first three volumes were published the year after the corresponding competitions were held). Early volumes have become quite collectable.

Competition

A maximum of 25 images ranging from intimate animal portraits to atmospheric landscapes, ground-breaking photojournalism to innovative technique can be submitted once a year, in 12-17 permanent and alternate categories. Since 2003 the grand prize has been selected from among the winning images of the categories and has been awarded to a single image in adult and young competition too. The photographer aged 17 and under submitting the best image receives the title "The Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year", while the author of the best image over 17 years of age becomes "The Wildlife Photographer of the Year". (This award has never been won in adult category more than once.) The deadline of submission of the images is around late February, and the results become public in mid-October.

The winning images are selected from among approximately 50,000 entries received from almost 100 countries around the globe, in three rounds by a prestigious and professional jury. The awards ceremony takes place in the Natural History Museum in London. On this date the latest Wildlife Photographer of the Year portfolio, introducing the winning images, comes out. Following the awards ceremony, the extremely high-quality and major Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition opens its gates in London and after that touring worldwide throughout the year, attracting more than 5 million visitors.

Categories

Photographers can enter their images into a range of categories, whose criteria are mostly based on the subject matter of the images. There are also 3 categories for under 18's, and 3 special awards. The number and name of categories changes nearly every year. In each category a winning, runner-up and several highly commended images are usually chosen, although sometimes the judges will not choose a winner or runner up in a particular category if they deem the standard of entries not to be high enough. The categories in the 2016 competition were as follows:

• Mammals
• Birds
• Reptiles, Amphibians and Fishes
• Invertebrates
• Plants and Fungi
• Underwater
• On Land
• In the Skies
• Urban
• Detail
• Impressions
• Black and White
• Wildlife Photojournalist: Single Image
• Wildlife Photojournalist: Photo Story Award
• Rising Star Portfolio Award (ages 18 to 25)
• Wildlife Photographer Portfolio Award (ages 26 and over)

2009 controversy

The overall 2009 competition winner, José Luis Rodriguez, was stripped of his award and his £10,000 prize following allegations from rival Spanish photographers that his picture of an Iberian wolf leaping a cattle-pen in Ávila had been staged, using a captive animal to do so. The jury opened an investigation and ultimately disqualified it. He was also prohibited from entering the competition for life. It was, however, too late to remove the image from the accompanying book. There was much controversy as to the legitimacy of such claims, which, some say, were not backed by evidence but by skepticism from some experts and the jury itself.

Grand title winners

Grand title winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year from 1984

Year	Competition	Winner	Photograph	Country
2023	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023	Laurent Ballesta	The Golden Horseshoe	France
2022	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022	Karine Aigner	The Big Buzz	USA
2021	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021	Laurent Ballesta	Creation	France
2020	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020	Sergey Gorshkov	The Embrace	Russia
2019	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019	Bao Yongqing	The Moment	China
2018	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018	Marsel van Oosten	The golden couple	Netherlands
2017	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017	Brent Stirton	Memorial to a species	South Africa
2016	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016	Tim Laman	Entwined lives	USA
2015	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015	Don Gutoski	A tale of two foxes	Canada
2014	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014	Michael "Nick" Nichols	The last great picture	USA
2013	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013	Greg du Toit	Essence of Elephants	South Africa
2012	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012	Paul Nicklen	Bubble-jetting Emperors	Canada
2011	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011	Daniel Beltrá	Still life in oil	Spain
2010	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010	Bence Máté	A marvel of ants	Hungary
2009	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009	José Luis Rodríguez (disqualified)	The storybook wolf	Spain
2008	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008	Steve Winter	Snowstorm leopard	USA
2007	Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007	Ben Osborne	Elephant creation	UK
2006	Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2006	Göran Ehlmé	Beast of the sediment	Sweden
2005	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2005	Manuel Presti	Sky chase	Italy
2004	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2004	Doug Perrine	Bronze whalers charging a baitball	USA
2003	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2003	Gerhard Schulz	Gorilla and boy	Germany
2002	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2002	Angie Scott	African elephant family watching a grey heron	Kenya
2001	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2001	Tobias Bernhard	Grey reef shark	Germany
2000	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2000	Manoj Shah	Orang-utan and baby	Kenya / UK
1999	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1999	Jamie Thom	Leopard with rising moon	South Africa
1998	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1998	Manfred Danegger	Boxing hares	Germany
1997	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1997	Tapani Räsänen	Common tern fishing	Finland
1996	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1996	Jason Venus	Badger running	UK
1995	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1995	Cherry Alexander	Blue iceberg, Antarctica	UK
1994	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1994	Thomas D Mangelsen	Polar bear and arctic fox	USA
1993	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1993	Martyn Colbeck	Bull elephant dusting	UK
1992	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1992	André Bärtschi	Red and green macaws	Liechtenstein
1991	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1991	Frans Lanting	Portfolio of 10 Images	Netherlands
1990	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1990	Wendy Shattil	Red fox cub	USA
1989	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1989	Jouni Ruuskanen	Red-throated diver	Finland
1988	Kodak Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1988	Jim Brandenburg	Gemsbok in the Namib desert, Namibia	USA
1987	Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1987	Jonathan Scott	Wild dog immobilising wildebeest	UK
1986	Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1986	Rajesh Bedi	Himalayan black bear	India
1985	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1985	Charles Summers	Young cheetah coming to grips with its first springbok	USA
1984	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1984	Richard Kemp and Julia Kemp	Diving goosander	UK

The full list

Full available database from 1984 on

• 1984−1990
• 1991
• 1992
• 1993
• 1994
• 1995
• 1996
• 1997
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• 1999
• 2000
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• 2003
• 2004
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• 2008
• 2009
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• 2013
• 2014
• 2015
• 2016
• 2017
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• 2021