What's the most work you've ever put in to getting the shot you desire? For Arctic photographer Audun Rikardsen, it took three years of planning, one motion sensor and a hole drilled through ice to get within touching distance of this dramatic, award-winning wildlife image.

A Seal's Last Sight has won the Grand Prize at the California Academy of Sciences' 13th annual BigPicture: Natural World Photography Competition. It was chosen from more than 7,400 entries submitted by photographers in 64 countries. And that's no great surprise.

This dramatic shot shows a polar bear peering through a seal's breathing hole in the drift ice north of Svalbard; a remote Norwegian archipelago that sits roughly midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.

The effect is pretty startling: we're seeing exactly what a seal would see in its final seconds of life. It's a rare vantage point on one of nature's most majestic beasts, and one built on a lifetime of Arctic experience.

How he shot it

Polar bears hunt seals by waiting motionless at their breathing holes. So Rikardsen needed to find a hole that was actually being watched, then getting a camera into position without disturbing anything.

He'd wanted such a picture for years. After repeated failed attempts, he finally located a breathing hole with fresh bear tracks nearby.

He drilled through the ice, rigged his camera directly beneath the hole, attached a motion sensor, then began to wait. Eight hours later, at 4am, a bear arrived. It pushed its head through the thin layer of ice covering the hole, blew its nose, and stared straight into the lens.

Instead of moving on, though, it simply lay down and went to sleep, right above the submerged rig. Rikardsen had to wait another nine hours – adding up to 17 in total – before the bear finally wandered off and he could retrieve his camera rig.

Technical approach

If you're leaving a camera alone under Arctic ice for 17 hours, you want to keep things simple. Rikardsen employed a Canon EOS 6D, a full-frame DSLR that's over a decade old now, paired with Canon's EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM, a wide prime well suited to close-up, distortion-controlled encounters like this one.

He set it to f/9 with pattern metering and manual white balance, since there was nobody there to adjust anything once the bear turned up.

None of these technical details would have made a difference, of course, without his years of scouting and perseverance in some of the Earth's most challenging weather and terrain. Not to mention the willingness to sit through an animal's nine-hour Arctic nap.

So next time you're getting a bit tired and cold on a shoot, and wondering whether to call it a day, maybe ask yourself: what would Rikardsen do?

BigPicture: Natural World Photography Competition is run by the California Academy of Sciences. The winning and finalist images go on display at Cal Academy in San Francisco from September 10.

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South African photographer Chris Fallows became interested in wildlife when he was a youngster and started taking photographs of marine life when he was a teenager.

Best known for his photographs of great white sharks and marine animals, which are captured with a fine-art aesthetic, Fallows was runner-up in the General – Black & White category of 2025's Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA) competition.

His low-angle black-and-white shot of a herd of elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park certainly chimed with the 'Power' theme of the awards.

Fallows' breakthrough photo was taken at sea, however, where he spends most of his time.

'Air Jaws', a great white shark breaching the waves at South Africa's Seal Island, was captured in 1996 and set him on the path to global recognition.

He prizes a minimalistic look and feel, and the resulting work lends itself to being displayed at scale – including public spaces like Times Square in New York City and Dubai International Airport.

Fallows sells large prints of his pictures, and invests the proceeds in conservation projects.

"Certain subjects are really strong for black-and-white photos," says Fallows. "On the ocean, I like to shoot into a choppy sea state that gives that mood and really powerful feel when you apply black and white processing to it."

Fallows spends a lot of time at sea, and we spoke to him following a spell working off the South African coast where he photographed 304 humpback whales in one day – a world record.

So let's find out more about the man, and his marine photography…

Find out more

Discover more about Chris and Monique Fallows' art and conservation work or to find ways to collaborate with them, go to www.chrisfallows.com or follow Chris on Instagram at @chrisfallowsphotography

Read more in Digital Camera magazine

A longer version of this interview appears in issue 311 (September 2026) of Digital Camera magazine.

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News in the UK has been aflutter this week with stories about the Montagu’s harrier – an elusive raptor species that has nested for the second year running in the same top-secret location, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Known to birders as “Monties”, these slender, pale-gray birds of prey have historically had low breeding pair numbers within the country, with a record high of 30 recorded in the 1950s.

Following a recent peak of 9 nests recorded in 2009, the population has declined with no pairs between 2020 and 2023, according to the RSPB.

The perilously low UK breeding numbers mean that the location of the new nest is being kept under wraps to stave hordes of avid birders from swarming. However, in Spain, these birds can be photographed reliably – albeit by obvserving “extreme” caution, say conservation groups.

According to the organization SEO BirdLife, when photographing Monties you should never approach or linger near a nest and should only take pictures via professional birding organizations operating specialized hides.

A recent study highlighted that, in 2017, Spain recorded the highest number of breeding Montagu's harriers within the European Union, at some 4,269-5,360. This represents a 27% decline from the previous 2006 recording, hence conservationists’ concerns.

Southwestern regions of Spain, such as Extremadura and La Janda, are known for being sighting hotspots. Though conservationists also warn that birders shouldn’t explore these areas in search of the birds alone without a trained guide.

As for within the UK, it’s unlikely that Monties’ numbers will become significant enough any time soon for it to become safe to photograph them. However, through ongoing conservation efforts from the likes of the RSPB, hopefully this will change in the long term.

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The Pallas’s cat may be a predator of nature, but it’s got to be one of nature’s cutest hunting animals. While famed for its grumpy facial expression, its rounded, low-set ears, uniquely round pupils and thick, bushy tail make it an extremely lovable grumpy feline.

Recently, one of these cats, which also happens to be highly elusive and whose population is largely unknown, was captured on camera by an Iranian nature enthusiast. Majid Batebi, who goes by Batebis online, used a camera trap to capture the footage of the feline near his home village of Dava in the highlands of Mazandaran province.

In the footage, we see the curiously cute yet still grumpy Pallas’s cat (known locally as “manul”) approach the trail camera before nimbly backing away. The footage clearly shows the size of the cat, which is typically around the same size as a domestic house cat – usually between 5-11 lbs (2-5 kg).

The high-quality images also highlight the cat’s thick fur, which happens to be the densest of any cat species on the planet, insulating it against extreme winter temperatures. While temperatures where Batebi recorded the footage in northern Iran can drop to -4°F (-20°C), Pallas’s cats have been observed in temperatures as low as -58°F (-50°C) in the Eurasian Steppe.

In his home province, Batebi has recorded a range of wildlife beyond Pallas’s cats using camera traps. In 2021, he recorded gray wolves and Bezoar ibex strolling the highlands against the backdrop of Mount Damavand. The dormant volcano stands at 18,410 feet (5,610m), making it the tallest in all of Asia.

At the end of the recent Pallas’s cat footage, the cute feline wanders back to the rock face behind it before climbing toward the edge of the camera frame, demonstrating its dainty rock-faring skills.

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I’m a sucker for a good nature documentary, but National Geographic’s new series Lion – which premiered this week – is something I’ve genuinely never seen before.

Directed by Jon Favreau – who also helmed Disney’s 2019 CG remake of The Lion King, along with Iron Man and The Mandalorian and Grogu – the new series follows the journey of a single lion cub over four years, with over a thousand filming days spent on Kenya’s Masai Mara savannah.

During this time, the small cub – nicknamed Kio – goes from fighting for survival to becoming leader of the pack, all of which is captured in incredible close-up detail using a full suite of traditional cameras and camera drones.

Favreau was a newbie to documentary filmmaking before embarking on the series, but he teamed up with Mike Gunton – a veteran BBC producer.

ABOVE: Watch the trailer for Lion

Gunton has worked on many of the BBC nature documentaries narrated by the legendary David Attenborough, such as Dynasties and Planet Earth – the ones that all of us have watched too many times to count (or is that just me?).

It was Gunton’s suggestion that Favreau and the team venture into the Masai Mara with drones, something that hadn’t really been done before. To achieve this, the team made use of local talent in Kenya, enlisting aerial cinematographer Anthony Njuguna to get shots with a DJI Inspire.

Favreau has discussed how the story of the series was discovered in the process of shooting and editing. The crew started by covering 50 lions with no idea of what the ultimate story was going to be, but found themselves increasingly drawn to Kio the cub as he battled the odds to survive on the unforgiving savannah.

Despite (or perhaps partly because of) having previously worked on a fully CG film, Favreau was drawn to the project in part by the prospect of creating something that was fully, 100% real.

"As we entered into this project, generative AI came online, and there’s a tremendous influx of content that you don’t know whether it’s authentic or not," he told National Geographic magazine.

"The notion of going out into the field and limiting ourselves to completely analog tools and telling an authentic story that feels real, I find that engaging right now, in contrast to how much out there is fabricated."

And just when I thought I couldn’t be any more excited, the score for the series is composed by the great Hans Zimmer – who also composed the music for Disney’s original The Lion King movie back in 1994 (as well as the likes Denis Villeneuve's Dune trilogy and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy).

Lion is available to watch now on Disney Plus and Hulu.

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Various news outlets have reported on the moment that an influencer, Tayane Dalazen, was bitten by a nurse shark while swimming off the Brazilian coast. But according to the BBC, in under a year no fewer than three influencers have been attacked.

The report goes a step further by highlighting evidence from a journal that both influencers and photographers are less likely to follow safety instructions.

This doesn’t surprise me one bit – and I suspect it’s a similar case on land. Earlier in the year I wrote an article about an incident where a photographer chased an owl around a field and refused to stop.

This past week, news broke that a stag in London’s Richmond Park was shot after attacking a man having a picnic. This wasn’t a photography-related incident, but the nature reserve is notorious for guests getting too close to the wildlife. And that includes photographers.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s a reason why the best wildlife photography lenses tend to be the expensive telephoto and super-telephoto variety. These optics are built precisely to enable photographers to get close enough without having to physically encroach on the animal’s territory.

And even with super-long lenses, you can still end up bothering wildlife. Skittish species, animals with young or animals in season can be easily spooked or aggressive.

I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of wildlife ethics right now – it’s a very broad subject – but if you leave this article with one thing in your mind, let it be this: if the animal’s behavior has changed, you’re probably too close and should slowly back off.

To be fair to the influencer involved in the latest wildlife incident, she was on an organized shark-diving trip and the BBC did report that “she says she 'wasn't there for social media' and didn't touch or provoke the shark”. And footage of the incident posted on Tayane's Instagram (above) shows that she didn't have a phone or camera in hand.

But these stories need to be told and creatives need to be warned, in a bid to help avoid incidents like this happening in the future. Tayane ended up with a big gash on her leg, but thankfully it was nothing worse. And kudos to her for talking about the experience and warning others.

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For more photography news, horrific photograph of starving polar bear still stands out as stark warning this World Photography Day. Now you can play Doom on this 26-year-old DSLR! Is Panasonic ditching Micro Four Thirds? This YouTuber thinks that an APS-C L-Mount camera might be on the cards – and it could spell the end for MFT.

You need only to watch a single Sir David Attenborough wildlife documentary to know that nature isn’t fair.

But when renowned wildlife photographers, Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen, documented a severely malnourished polar bear during a SeaLegacy exhibition roughly nine years ago, it hit home hard – very hard.

The uncomfortable images and footage captured in August 2017 weren’t just another cruel example of the circle of life, but an image of one of Earth’s most magnificent creatures, reduced to a skeletal shadow of its former self. And depending on whom you asked, it was all our fault.

Cristina herself did explain in an Instagram post (above) that the cause of the bear’s state was impossible to tell. However, comparisons with climate change were inevitable.

Polar bears have long been used to raise awareness of melting glaciers, due to the impact to their habitat. And indeed, the image has been shared, once again, by @pawnewsnetwork with the headline: “The heartbreaking polar bear photo that changed how millions see climate change.”

In a world where questions are being raised regarding the impact of AI on the environment, images such as this are hugely important in raising awareness about the potential wider impact on our planet's species.

When photography can sometimes seem less relevant than it ever has done, instances like this are a stark reminder of the staying power of great imagery.

Even in this age of video, I still believe that a single frame carries more weight. There’s no lead up to the decisive moment, no lingering afterwards, it’s simply there, for the viewer to see whether they like it or not.

What Cristina and Paul captured that day is some of the most visceral, evocative and heartwrenching wildlife imaging I’ve ever seen. As soon as I was assigned this article, I could see an image of the polar bear in my mind’s eye before I even clicked on the link.

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Check out the best camera for wildlife photography. Plus, “I started screaming because I know what shelling looks like” – dolphin photographed performing extremely rare behavior. Photographer paddled a kayak to the edge of the continental shelf and waited. The feeding frenzy that emerged reminds us: the best wildlife shots come from watching, not chasing.

In a world where many creatives are facing an increasingly uncertain future, it’s nice to be reminded that – in many cases – traditional photography is still as vital as ever.

And while scientific research might not be the first thing that comes to mind, I am constantly reporting on the craft’s role in documenting rare wildlife encounters.

A recent interaction between researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast and bottlenose dolphins is a prime example.

The encounter happened at Queensland Australia’s Great Sandy Marine Park, between July and October 2025, where a research team led by Dr Alexis Levengood captured imagery of a behavior known as 'shelling'.

The behavior is so rare that it's only been published once before, but this is the first time it's been officially recorded on the east coast of Australia.

According to Dr Levengood, “we spotted a dolphin raising something large out of the water. I started screaming because I know what shelling looks like”.

The animal behavioralist and marine mammal expert explained that the dolphins use 'shelling' to hunt for fish; the shell becomes an implement in which to trap prey. The mammals then shake the makeshift tool on the surface until their prize slides into their jaws.

I'm no marine life expert, but I am an avid wildlife lover and I certainly had no idea that dolphins did this.

To make matters even more interesting, the researchers observed both an adult female and its calf engaging in the behavior, leading them to deduce that the juvenile had learned from its mother.

You can see the remarkable behavior being exhibited in the footage below:

“Our footage provides the first potential evidence of maternal social transmission – a process by which offspring learn behaviour by observing the actions of its mother,” said Dr Levengood. “It challenges the belief that dolphins learn this tool use from their peers.”

In a world of hobbyist and professional photographers aiming to capture the very best photos possible, it can be easy to forget that imaging is also used purely for surveillance, observation and documentation.

It’s not about capturing an attractive image, it’s about clearly capturing the moment for posterity.

If you’re a wildlife enthusiast first and a photographer second, and are looking for a camera to complement your bird or wildlife-watching setup, I’d buy this monster $1000 all-in-one bridge camera.

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This extraordinary image shot by Allan Cronin wasn't down to dumb luck. Now announced as a finalist in the Wildlife category of this year's Ocean Photographer of the Year, Cronin had been closely watching the local wildlife. And that tipped him off to what might be about to happen.

A fur seal gets firm hold of a New Zealand rough skate, flinging it clear of the water in a burst of spray, while a crowd of seabirds shows up for whatever falls their way. The scene is chaotic, visceral and a reminder that nature is not all bunnies and rainbows but, as the poet Tennyson once put it, red in tooth and claw.

It's a terrific picture, and a tribute to the patience of the photographer. Cronin – an ex-electrician turned whale watching guide and skipper – was just offshore from Kaikōura, on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. He paddled close to the edge of the continental shelf and simply waited.

"We kept a close eye on the fur seals and the birds waiting for a moment like this," he recalls. "The fur seals are incredible predators and very messy eaters, which causes much competition between the seabirds as they jostled to be closest to the action. But not too close, in case the seal feels like adding a side dish."

How it was taken

Cronin shot on a Sony A6600 with a 70-350mm zoom at 113mm, giving a 35mm-equivalent focal length of around 169mm; useful reach for staying back from a feeding frenzy without losing the action.

He locked in a shutter speed of 1/2500 sec – more than fast enough to freeze water droplets mid-air and stop a thrashing skate from blurring into a smear – while f/6.3 and ISO500 proved reliable settings for bright open water with plenty of light to spare.

Manual exposure throughout suggests he wasn't leaving the camera to guess at a scene with this much contrast between dark seal, pale fish and white spray.

Ultimately, though, what made the image a success wasn't luck so much as a local who understood the food chain well enough to predict it. The seabirds gave away the location, the shutter speed handled the violence of the moment, and the kayak kept Cronin close enough to matter without becoming part of the story himself.

It's all a reminder that some of the most dramatic wildlife photographs come down to two simple, unglamorous skills. Namely, knowing where to look and having the patience to keep looking.

The Ocean Photographer of the Year contest draws thousands of entries from photographers around the world, across categories including Fine Art, Conservation Impact, Conservation Hope, Human Connection, Adventure and the new Ocean Unseen: Hidden Worlds.

Winners will be announced in September. The award is presented by Oceanographic and Blancpain.

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An image of a very uncommon and venomous snake appeared on Facebook on August 01, photographed at Singapore’s MacRitchie Reservoir. But would-be photographers or reptile enthusiasts are being warned not to approach or disturb the potentially dangerous species.

Judging by the Facebook comments, there seems to be some confusion as to whether the snake is poisonous or venomous and just how much of a danger it poses to humans. However, this has been cleared up by experts.

According to the Straits Times, the National Parks Board confirmed that the elusive reptile is both poisonous and venomous. The former refers to animals that secrete toxins when touched or ingested, while the latter requires toxins to be injected into the body via a bite.

The same news outlet quoted Dr Alex Figueroa of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, who stated: “The species is known to be venomous, so any handling should be left to experts”.

Judging by the photographs from Mat Chay, a fairly wide-angle lens was used – probably belonging to a camera phone. This would likely require getting closer to the reptile than is advised.

That’s why dedicated wildlife photographers rely on telephoto lenses and supertelephoto lenses, as well as the best trail cameras, allowing them to photograph subjects from a safe distance.

But as is often the case with wildlife photography, keeping a safe distance isn’t just about human safety. Some commenters on Facebook have noted that the reptile appears to have been in the process of ingesting a frog, which is a common form of prey for the species.

One concerned commenter stated: “Disturb the snake at this point and it will spit the carcass out then slither away hungry. Hope nobody denied it its meal.”

Thankfully, that’s what groups like Singapore Wildlife Sightings are for. Posts like Mat’s offer valuable insight into the country's biodiversity, while inviting others to offer advice that will hopefully keep humans (and snakes) sss-afe and sss-sound.

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Drones have unlocked a completely new human perspective of the world. However, something we were yet to see from our technological bird's-eye view was the moment a humpback whale brought its newborn into the watery world.

That was until July 28, when photographer Alexander Forrest became the first to capture the once-in-a-lifetime event with his drone off the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.

While carrying out aerial observations of migrating humpback whales for the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA), he noticed one of the whales acting strangely.

“Between the southbound and northbound migrators, one whale stood out – a lone adult, travelling in the shallows at a very slow speed,” he said in an Instagram post.

“The whale suddenly rose toward the surface, so I hit record – any breath is a chance to capture a unique behavior.”

Alexander Forrest/ORRCA (@forrestfov)

ABOVE: The rare moment a humpback calf 'jets' from its mother to the surface, taking its first breaths

However, the female humpback wasn’t short of breath, coming to the surface to deliver her calf. “It was extraordinary – my adrenaline was through the roof, and it echoes into the footage,” he said.

The video captured a plume of blood erupting from the female humpback, which was the moment Alex zoomed in with the drone camera. Then, moments later, a pale calf “jetted” to the surface taking its first breaths before reuniting with mother.

Upon realizing what he’d just witnessed, Alex contacted ORRCA and was shortly joined by fellow drone pilots from the organization. The group continued documenting the mother and calf’s behavior until sunset, with the ORRCA team back at HQ staying in touch over the phone.

As only the fourth sighting of a humpback whale giving birth ever recorded, Alex said his footage will aid research into how the species reproduces, maternal behavior and the initial stages of a calf’s life.

“It’s a privilege to have witnessed such a remarkable moment, and even more rewarding to know it may contribute to marine mammal science for years to come.”

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Back in 2022, researchers in Papua New Guinea, with the vital help of the local community, made an important rediscovery for wildlife conservation. Through the use of camera traps, they recorded footage of a black-naped pheasant-pigeon. Known locally as Auwo, this bird species that hadn't been seen by humans since its first discovery in 1882, some 140 years earlier.

Now, footage showing the moment of rediscovery, recorded by the researchers themselves, has gone viral four years later. The heartwarming video, captured by study co-lead Jordan Boersma of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, shows the ecstatic scene of his colleague, local biologist Doka Nason, jumping for joy at what the trail camera had picked up.

In the video, you can hear both Boersma and Nason repeatedly saying the name “Auwo” in disbelief, with Boersma later recalling he felt like he'd been “confronted by an image of a mythical creature.”

The black-naped pheasant-pigeon (Otidiphaps insularis) is a rare, quirky ground-dwelling bird native to Fergusson Island in Papua New Guinea. While classified in the pigeon and dove family, it looks and behaves like a pheasant.

It features a mix of iridescent green, bronze, and black plumage with a distinctive solid black nape on the back of its neck, and has a flattened, bobbing tail and long legs adapted for walking.

The researchers, also co-led by John C. Mittermeier, director of the American Bird Conservancy's Search for Lost Birds Program, had already been on Fergusson Island for a month, making the rediscovery just two days before the expedition was due to end. Mittermeier later described the event as “the kind of moment you dream about your entire life as a conservationist and birdwatcher.”

While an incredible story of conservation. And the endearing footage of Nason over the moon at the continued existence of the black-naped pheasant-pigeon is also a testament to how important endemic wildlife species are to Indigenous communities.

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John C Miitermeir and the Search for Lost Birds was also involved in a 2026 re-discovery of the blue-fronted lorikeet, a small endemic parrot found only on the island of Buru, Indonesia, not seen in 100 years.

I recently came across Life At The Edge, a photobook on the rugged Caithness coastline in northeastern Scotland, by local resident Ken Crossan.

After delving a little deeper into his work, I found out that Ken’s photos, which typically depict the flora and fauna of his home county, have also been recognized in competitions on both the national and international stage.

In fact, Ken recently snagged a 2025 Scottish Nature Photography Award (SNPA), has been recognized by the British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA), and gained an honorable mention in none other than the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards.

As humble as they come, Ken would consider himself a natural historian well before an award-winning photographer. However, his photographic accolades are impressive, and I couldn't resist reaching out for his tips and tricks.

Ken's equipment

Ken is a Nikon shooter through and through. His go-to camera body is the Nikon Z8 and his lenses include:

• Nikkor 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3
• Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8
• Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8
• Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8
• Nikkor 105mm f/2.8

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Ever wonder what the ocean looks like from a shark's perspective? New research on whale sharks is disrupting what science understands about the 20-ton giants – and creating mesmerizing footage in the process.

Whale sharks – filter-feeding sharks that get their name from their whale-like size – have largely been observed from the surface, but researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Murdoch University asked a key question: what do whale sharks do when no one is watching?

Electronic tags have long been used to study animal behavior, but for this study, researchers used tags with a small camera built in. The tags were designed to fall off after 24 hours, so the researchers could then locate the tag’s signal and retrieve the footage.

The group attached the small tags to the dorsal fin (the top fin) of five juvenile whale sharks near the Ningaloo Reef off Western Australia.

Combining the footage with previous observations, the team built what they’re calling the largest catalog of the shark’s behavior to date – particularly on the animals' feeding patterns.

One of the key findings that the cameras uncovered is that whale sharks don’t predominantly feed near the surface as first thought. Cameras showed the creatures sinking with open mouths to catch a snack, as well as feeding towards the surface.

The cameras also demonstrated that whale sharks actually have a wide variety of approaches to feeding. During the 24 hours the researchers watched the whales, they spent most of their time in what the researchers called “low-effort” feeding behaviors before switching to more active feeding when locating a larger swarm of krill. Researchers described the behavior as akin to humans snacking while trying to decide what to cook for dinner.

The data is opening up insight into why whale sharks are able to survive in tropical areas where prey can sometimes be inconsistent. Researchers are hopeful that further similar studies using cameras could shed additional light on the ocean’s gentle giants.

The research was published in the journal Marine Biology.

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As a photographer I'm always striving to level up my images, but researchers are warning bird photographers that one way to "improve" a bird photo may actually end up contaminating valuable citizen scientist databases with misleading data.

In a recent op-ed from the journal Nature, researchers from citizen science databases including iNaturalist and the Macaulay Library told a startling story of a Red-Winged Blackbird found well outside its usual range in Brazil.

The problem? The bird was actually a common Epaulet Oriole but, when the photographer asked an AI platform to "improve this photo", AI removed the bird's yellow coloring, making it look like an entirely different species.

While fake wildlife images are already littering social media platforms, the altered images' existence inside these so-called citizen scientist platforms could have serious implications, as researchers will use the sightings reported from hobbyist birders to monitor a species' habitat and patterns.

The image that the researchers used as an example wasn’t from an internet trickster, but rather from a birder who didn’t realize the implications of asking an AI platform to "improve this photo".

GenAI platforms often don't edit a photo in the traditional sense, like improving contrast, exposure and color. Instead, some GenAI photo editors regenerate, turning a real photograph into a generated image. In the world of birding, the AI can introduce subtle 'enhancements' that actually change the identification of the bird entirely.

"AI image processing tools are now ubiquitous, and there is a pressing need to educate contributors of the problems that image manipulation can cause for the scientific record," the researchers wrote.

A growing number of photo editing apps can now use AI to help novices edit photos without the usual know-how. But the apps don’t always make it clear when AI is editing and when it is regenerating pixels – and many don’t come with an option to turn the AI features off.

The researchers call for the citizen scientist platforms to integrate AI detection algorithms – some of which have already been implemented, such as recent changes to iNaturalist. But the large number of different GenAI platforms can make detection challenging.

For birders, the message is clear: don't use GenAI to share wildlife sightings on community platforms for sharing sightings.

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For closer, sharper shots without GenAI, take a look at the best lenses for bird photography.

As a professional portrait and wedding photographer, I’m constantly trying to one-up myself, to make the next gallery of photographs even better than the last. But, there’s one genre that I will continue to shoot even if I’m absolutely terrible at it: wildlife photography.

I don’t consider myself a professional wildlife photographer, which is perhaps why heading out to a nature preserve with my camera feels liberating. There’s no pressure to get a perfect shot, there are no wedding timelines and there are no unwilling family members to contend with.

Heck, it’s highly likely that the “subject” may never even show up for the photo shoot at all, wildlife being, well, wild. It’s just me, my camera, and (possibly) some nature.

Wildlife photography is my form of self-care. Perhaps a spa day might be a better form of self-care than hauling the heaviest lenses on a multi-mile hike, and yet, I emerge from the woods sweaty, muscles aching, but a smile plastered on my face.

My use of wildlife photography as self-care dates back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when my usual escapes were all shut down at the same time that I had virtual school placed on top of an already precariously balanced to-do list.

I very quickly realized that if I am both a better mother and a better artist if I take the time to step away and spend some time outside. My creative brain needs time to wander aimlessly, bored, and there’s no better place than a walk through the woods (or a row on the lake).

Sometimes, I head out on a wildlife shoot and I never see anything more exciting than the typical birds that surround my bird feeder at home. Sometimes, I see unusual wildlife and I’m not fast enough to bring my camera up to my eye, so I shoot empty branches instead.

And yes, sometimes I do get some wildlife shots that I’m proud of.

I turned both of my creative hobbies – writing and photography – into a career. But I think every professional artist needs a creative outlet that doesn’t come with the pressures of a creative career. For me, that outlet is wildlife photography.

Even if the subject never shows up, I’m more grounded, my brain more apt to think outside the box, with some time in the woods with my camera.

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Browse the best cameras for wildlife photography or the best lenses for bird photography.

Sitting at my desk, a flash of movement outside my window caught my eye. When I looked up, my hands reflexively went for my wildlife photography gear. Right outside my cabin, a flock of cedar waxwings decided to feast on the moths, mayflies, and dragonflies right outside my window.

I’ve always loved cedar waxwings because their wings look impossibly smooth, almost plastic. But perhaps even more importantly for wildlife photography, the birds didn’t seem to mind at all at a human presence, darting right over my head to catch bugs in mid-air.

Birds are the great equalizer in wildlife photography. I can’t photograph a wild giraffe or monkey without a plane ticket. But, from the pigeons on a New York City apartment balcony to cardinals at a country bird feeder to puffins in the Arctic, birds are nearly everywhere.

Sometimes, I plan my wildlife photo hikes – which I often use as a much-needed mental health break – well in advance. I research the best spots and rearrange my schedule so that I can head out when wildlife tends to be the most active.

But other times, wildlife photography opportunities present themselves when I least expect. I’ve often longed for my wildlife gear when spotting a bird that I haven’t photographed before in a grocery store parking lot.

I can’t count the times that I wish I weren’t driving when I spotted wildlife, like the kestrel I saw scoop up a field mouse or the eagle that swooped right out of the fog towards me one morning, his wings feeling nearly as large as my windshield.

I consider myself only a hobbyist wildlife photographer (because when you turn both of your creative passions into a career, something needs to remain a sacred hobby). Thankfully, the cedar waxwings were enjoying the feast of bugs in my yard for more than an hour. That gave me the opportunity to watch, wait, and try for some action shots.

I wasn’t quite fast enough to get the birds swooping midair, but I managed to photograph a few wings poised in mid-flight, along with a few bugs clutched in beaks. A bald eagle even flew overhead while I was out photographing the cedar waxwings.

I walked back in the door, memory card bursting, and a smile plastered on my face – sometimes it’s the most unexpected photo shoots that bring the most joy.

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Browse the best cameras for wildlife photography or the best lenses for bird photography.

Triggered emotions are the sign of a successful photograph – and I was reminded of this when I stumbled across photographs of a 55-year-old circus elephant, Badsha Bahadur. The photographs of the now rescued elephant are heartbreaking to see, but also prove the power that photos, videos, and social media can play.

Videos of Badsha’s condition went viral on social media earlier this month – and it’s those videos that sparked a rescue for the aging animal. Authorities rescued the 55-year-old elephant from Naogaon, and the elephant is now undergoing treatment at the Bangladesh National Zoo.

Photographs show the elephant receiving care from a team of veterinary specialists, yet at the same time reveal the extent of the animal’s injuries, which included an injured leg as well as a broken and infected tusk.

Photographer Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury, working for NurPhoto, captured this collection of images using Nikon Z9 and Z8 cameras, showing both the elephant’s emaciated appearance and close-ups of the textured skin marred by sores.

The veterinary team and authorities were able to rescue the animal, however, thanks to videos circulating on social media that revealed the elephant’s condition. Authorities said that the elephant’s previous owner had been unable to afford the cost of treatment and upkeep.

Elephants are critically endangered in Bangladesh. Last year, efforts of conservation groups led to new orders that made capturing the young elephants for use in the logging and circus industry illegal.

Badsha Bahadur is about 55 years old, authorities said. Asian elephants’ lifespan is around 70 years in the wild and around 80 years in captivity with proper care.

Bangladesh National Zoo, located in the country’s capital, Dhaka, is the largest zoo in the country and is operated by the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock. According to the zoo’s website, the facility houses more than 2,000 animals from 165 different species.

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There’s a video doing the rounds on social media showing a group of wildlife photographers coming within just meters of a puma in the Torres del Paine National Park (Chilean Patagonia), and it’s causing quite a ruckus.

On one side, you’ve got those pointing the finger at the photographers and their guide for what appears to be a major encroachment on the puma’s territory. And on the other there are the photographers who appear in the videos themselves and their supporters saying it was, in fact, the animal who flouted the boundaries.

Having watched the video myself, it's clear that the animal approaches the group, but I’m still siding with the finger-pointers. Why? Because the group – and their guide for that matter – broke the rules. One broken rule leads to another, which we all know creates a slippery slope towards worsening wildlife photography practices, like idiot tourists trying to take selfies with animals…

Above: the viral video shared by Guillermo

Torres del Paine National Park authority clearly states a minimum distance of 50m between animals and people (the rules are in Spanish, so have your translator ready, if need be). And in the video that went viral, which was shared on Instagram by a photographer, Guillermo, who was there that day, we see this rule go out the window.

What we don't see in this video, but which we do in a longer sequence from that day captured by fellow group member and photographer, Belen Etchegaray, is that the puma slowly made its way toward the group, not the other way around, which she says lets them off the hook.

But I still don't buy it. With all due respect, Belen and her crew must hold themselves to higher standards. That 50m minimum distance I mentioned before? Well, the national park also states that it's the tourists' responsibility to maintain it, even if the animal is the one closing the gap.

If anything, Belen’s video is the smoking gun that convicts the group as the guilty party, not the puma, as in none of the frames do the people make any attempt at distancing themselves from the wild cat.

Above: the full sequence shared by Belen Etchegaray

Admittedly, the puma, Diana, who’s well-known to guides thanks to a recognizable cut on her left ear, seemed quite unbothered by the group's presence. In the clips you can clearly see she’s on the hunt for something that’s out of frame, which explains why she’s so unfazed by the humans.

You may now think this works in the group's favor. Nope, in fact, it condemns them even more in my eyes! If the animal is on the hunt, then Torres del Paine is even stricter, stating that the minimum distance extends to 100m.

Call me a bore, but the rules are the rules, and the group didn't take the precautions they promised to when they entered the national park. It doesn't matter if the minimum distance to be kept by photographers is 50m, 100m, or 1000m, these rules are to protect the animals we love while still enabling us to enjoy our beloved craft.

Guillermo, Belen, and the rest of the group seemingly made no effort to backtrack and give Diana the 100m of space she was owed. Flouting rules like these sets a dangerous precedent for animals in wildlife photography hotspots everywhere, not just Torres del Paine National Park.

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Discover our expert pick of the best cameras for wildlife photography. We’ve put all of these rigs through rigorous hands-on testing.

Snow leopards are one of, if not the, most difficult big cats to spot thanks to their perilous habitats and shadowy movements. These cats typically live at altitudes between 3,000 to 4,500 meters across Central and South Asia, meaning researchers, who’ve nickanmed them the “Ghosts of the Mountains” often have their work cut out.

However, over the years, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has partnered with local conservation efforts to help restore populations of the big cat, in the process drip-feeding images to the public from their trail cams.

The latest photos to appear on WWF’s social channels have come from an ongoing survey which began in 2022 to document the elusive mountain cats across 10 high-altitude regions in China, including the Wolong National Nature Reserve (Sichuan Province) and the Sanjiangyuan National Park (Qinghai Province).

Since then, the network of cameras has captured more than 600 photos of snow leopards and recorded 157 separate sightings, shedding new light on the species’ population, of which only 22% is estimated to have been documented by researchers.

While snow leopards remain largely out of human sight high up in the mountains, the researchers hope the passive infrared (PIR) cameras, which can function in temperatures as low as -40°C, will reveal greater numbers of these cats than previously known.

Along with capturing snow leopards, the current survey has also snapped pictures of other high-altitude species, including foxes and takins – large, stocky mammals native to the eastern Himalayas that look like a cross between a bison and a moose.

WWF hasn’t mentioned when the current survey will come to an end, so hopefully there will be more snow leopard and other wildlife pictures shared over the coming months too.

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At the beginning of the year, I set the cat firmly among the pigeons when I claimed that I only recommend the ‘Big Three’ camera brands for serious wildlife photography: Canon, Nikon and Sony. As you can imagine, Micro Four Thirds camera (MFT) photographers were not happy.

So, Luke from OM System got in touch with me and offered to lend me some kit so I could put my money where my mouth was. Cue the arrival of the flagship OM System OM-1 Mark II and the mighty ‘Big White’ M.Zuiko 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25X IS Pro, as well as the M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS and M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO. Lucky me!

Determined to put the kit through its paces, I headed off to wetland wildlife reserve WWT Slimbridge and the Hawk Conservancy Trust in a bid to photograph some of the most challenging wildlife subjects on Earth: birds. So, read on to find out why I hold my hand up and admit that I was so very, very wrong about MFT. Just don’t expect a puff piece – I’m not ready to give up my full-frame kit just yet…

Wildlife photography weight saving

MFT is renowned for the small size and light weight of its cameras and lenses. But in my review of the ‘Big White’ 150-400mm f/4.5, I called it a bit of an oxymoron. That’s because it’s a 12.4in long, 1,875g behemoth. Still, compare it to a full-frame 600mm f/4 lens and it’s a minnow. It’s also the largest MFT lens on the market, aimed squarely at sports and wildlife professionals.

The M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS is just eight inches long and 1,102g, with the M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO measuring 6.3in and weighing 880g. To put that into perspective, every MFT lens on the market (even the ‘Big White’) is smaller and lighter than the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR. And while the OM System OM-1 Mark II is very small and light for a flagship camera, it’s not so prominent that longer lenses feel unbalanced, which is a good thing in my book.

I’m no stranger to heavy kit. I’ve owned a Nikon D800, Nikon D850 and Nikon Z8, and as I get older and my back becomes more temperamental, the weight of my kit is something I’m becoming more and more aware of. Most camera gear seems manageable when you pluck it off the shelf in an air-conditioned store and wave it around for a few minutes. You’ve got to imagine yourself in blistering heat, trudging your way up a gravel track to get to that secluded hide. Or standing on a cliff-top, capturing pan after pan of soaring seabirds.

And indeed, while walking around with my OM System kit, I couldn’t quite believe that I was packing two super-telephoto and one telephoto lens, plus a flagship camera. My own personal Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR is so long, a lot of camera bags are too small for me to pack it with a camera attached. No such problem here. For hide photography I do prefer to use some kind of support, be it a tripod, monopod, or beanbag, but the M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS, especially, is an absolute joy to stroll around with.

Even the ‘Big White’ is easy to cart about. And doing so netted me my favorite image of this little project. I was leaving a hide, ‘Big White’ in hand, when a sparrowhawk landed in a tree, right in front of me (above). I couldn’t believe my luck! I simply raised the M.Zuiko 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25X IS Pro, took full advantage of its huge 800mm effective focal length and squeezed off a burst. No cropping needed.

If you’re physically unable to lug around heavy kit, know that it will impact your enjoyment, or even become a wildlife photography barrier, you simply cannot put a price on MFT’s weight-saving properties. However, it comes with a bit of a caveat: image quality.

How good is MFT image quality?

At the epicentre of MFT’s weight-saving strategy is its 4/3 sensor, which measures 17.3 × 13mm, roughly half the dimensions of a full-frame sensor (36 × 24mm) and roughly ¼ of the surface area, while also being smaller than an APS-C sensor (23.5 x 15.6mm).

This results in what tends to be a combination of lower resolutions and smaller photosites resulting in more noticeable noise, which means MFT images tend not to hold up to extreme cropping as well as their APS-C and full-frame counterparts. The flip side is that 2x crop factor, which means you’re effectively doubling your lens’s given focal length. In practice, this is often a big advantage, but there's one situation where it's more of a hindrance. Let me explain…

So, the big plus point here is that you can fill the frame with your subject, while standing further back. This means you’re less likely to stress or scare wildlife, or better your chances when restricted to a hide. But, this advantage is curtailed somewhat because it leaves you far less room for cropping.

A lot of photographers will tell you to get it right in camera. It’s sound advice, but doesn’t always work out in practice. Wildlife and sports photographers, in particular, often rely upon cropping simply because they cannot get close enough to the subject. This levels the playing field somewhat when it comes to high-resolution full-frame cameras that can be cropped significantly.

If you’re shooting at 400mm on a full-frame camera, you can crop to the point that you can end up with a similar field of view as an MFT camera (800mm), but a 45.7MP or 60MP sensor will still leave you with less resolution than a 20.4MP MFT sensor. However, the margins are fine and the advantage with extensive cropping is that you get more control over your composition. If you’re capturing slower wildlife or wildlife portraits then I think getting it right in camera is definitely what you should be aiming for and in this context the extended reach of an MFT setup can work to your advantage.

But I spent a lot of time capturing birds in flight during the Hawk Conservancy Trust’s excellent flying displays and what I found out was that even though I could get much closer to the subjects using my OM System camera, I was missing more shots. The reason is simple, the larger the subject is in the frame, the less room you have for error.

When the subject is an erratic bird, you really do need to pull back slightly to give yourself some wiggle room and help prevent unintentionally cropped wing tips, beaks, etc. So, while MFT gives you the advantage when capturing portraits or slower subjects, a high-resolution full-frame camera wins for extreme action such as birds in flight.

OM System OM-1 Mark II: Suitable for wildlife?

I really enjoyed using the OM System OM-1 Mark II. After all, Digital Camera World’s resident MFT fanatic, James Artaius, awarded it five stars in his review. For starters, it’s a fantastic price. It’s an expensive camera, but you can find it for under $2,000 / £2,000, which is enthusiast-camera prices for flagship technology. What really surprised me, though, is the camera’s ergonomics.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the OM-1 Mark II is the most comfortable camera I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. The grip feels just right, your thumb naturally rests on the ISO button and your left hand is free to alter the AF mode or burst speed without ever moving your eye away from the viewfinder. I was using my Nikon Z8 on the day to compare and the OM-1’s AF isn’t as good as the Nikon’s, but you’re talking about a more expensive, larger and heavier camera.

Do I still recommend ONLY the ‘Big Three’ for wildlife photography?

I guess I’m recommending the ‘Big Four’ for wildlife photography now. ‘Big Five’ if you include Panasonic’s wildlife-worthy Lumix G9 II. I still stand by my original article in that if someone were looking for the very best wildlife photography setup money can buy, I’d lead them down the full-frame route. But if budget or your back is a concern or if you’re a hobbyist who really doesn’t need to be buying the cream of the pro-grade crop, then Micro Four Thirds is not only a solution, its unique advantages mean that it’s not even a sub-par option. It’s just a different option.

My feeling is that it really comes into its own when photographing almost any wildlife that isn’t birds in flight. The extended reach increases your chances of getting it right in camera, making it a fantastic system for wildlife reserve trips or safaris. However, I still think the ability to widen your framing and crop in post is the better choice when capturing birds in flight.

But that’s what’s great about the photography industry today; there really is a system for everyone. So don’t let me or anyone else tell you that Micro Four Thirds isn’t an ideal fit for wildlife photography. If it meets your budget and saves your back, it’s the system for you. Right then, Fujifilm photographers. Come at me!

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Macro photography is recognizable by its characteristic shallow depth of field and tight framing. In the majority of close-up images, a single subject is isolated in the frame, with a sharp falloff in focus in front of and behind the subject.

This type of composition is fantastic for highlighting details and creating a bug’s-eye perspective. However, there are disadvantages to the macro point of view, namely a removal of context – a limit to situational coverage.

Sometimes we want to show how our subject fits into the environment beyond the frame edges, to tell our viewers a little more about it. And photomerging can provide an answer.

Traditionally, panoramas are associated with landscape photography – yet the widescreen format can lend a unique style to macro. Due to the specific challenges of the genre, however, we must adapt our approach to the shooting process.

As we will be rotating the camera, it's critical to observe the effect on focus placement and make adjustments. Fine control over focusing and exposure is necessary to produce an effective, engaging and successfully merged panoramic view.

For this technique, try using both a true macro lens and a telephoto zoom with a close-up function to see which gives more manageable results.

6 pro shooting steps

1. Set camera height

Start by lowering the tripod so that the camera is aimed at the subject from 90°. This reduces the impact of parallax issues during image stitching and increases depth of field over the subject.

2. Perform test pan

Decide exactly how much of the scene you want to cover and calculate where to start and end your pan movement, as well as how many images this may take to complete.

3. Lock exposure

Find the ideal exposure, then lock in these settings by switching to manual mode and entering the shutter speed and aperture values. This prevents brightness from changing between segments.

4. Focus first segment

Zoom in using Live View to focus the first segment. Here the subject was not visible in the first image, so the distance between it and the camera had to be measured and the focus estimated.

5. Pan and refocus

Shoot the first image and rotate the camera to shoot the second. Ensure the focus position is kept at the same distance relative to the camera to maintain sharpness over the subject.

6. Repeat and stitch

Using a smaller f-number will minimize focus changes between images, but you may need to reshoot several times to perfect focus placement. Turn on focus peaking to visualize the focal plane.

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A wildlife photographer has just been shortlisted for the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year (AGNPOTY) 2026 for his dreamy underwater image of a seahorse so rare that scientists say it is classified as “data deficient”.

Lewis Burnett photographed the elusive tiger snout seahorse meandering among a hypnotic coral growth bursting with soft, pastel blues, pinks and orange colours.

This seahorse is rarely seen in the wild – so much so that according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which documents animal species at risk of extinction, there isn't enough data to categorize its status.

The tiger snout seahorse is entirely endemic to Western Australia, living between the Abrolhos Islands and Rockingham, making them difficult to observe.

They are rarely logged in science databases; seahorse researchers have noted that, out of hundreds of seahorse observations, only a tiny fraction are tiger snouts.

“This site is known for spectacular soft coral growths, so I was able to photograph this iconic species with a background that does them justice,” Burnett told AGNPOTY.

He used a Sony A1 camera with a Nikon Nikonos RS 13mm f/1.8 fisheye lens to capture the scene, opting for a 1/80 shutter speed, f/13 aperture and ISO 400.

The fantastic image of the tiger snout seahorse will now battle it out with 99 other finalist images to be crowned the overall winner of Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2026, taking home AU$10,000 (approximately $6,900 / £5,200) and receiving widespread recognition.

Hosted by the Southern Australian Museum (Adelaide), the competition accepts images showcasing natural flora, fauna, land/seascapes, or celestial objects within the ANZANG (Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and New Guinea) bioregion.

In 2025, the coveted title of Nature Photographer of the Year went to Ross Gudgeon (Australia) for his truly unique image of a cauliflower soft coral.

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An accomplished wildlife photographer had a truly special encounter with a family of elusive big cats while leading a photo tour group in an Indian national park. Matan Sharon and his tour group were in Manas National Park, at the foothills of the Himalayas in northeastern India, when they finally encountered the melanistic Indian leopard.

More commonly known as "black panthers”, these majestic yet elusive big cats make up just one in ten leopard individuals worldwide.

Found in the dense, shaded tropical rainforests of South and Southeast Asia, they carry a genetic mutation called melanism – which causes an overproduction of dark pigment while their underlying rosette patterns remain visible under certain light.

Above: Matan Sharon's dusk encounter with the leopard cubs

ABOVE: Watch Matan Sharon's dusk encounter with the leopard cubs

"After hours of intense waiting, with the invaluable help of our local guides, the magic happened," said Matan, speaking to Indian tour company FinderBridge. "Exactly 20 minutes after sundown, a head popped up from the tea plantation. It slowly began to climb. Total silence fell over us."

The group had spotted two melanistic leopard cubs and, as one began scaling a tree, the moment all wildlife photographers prayed for occurred: the animal looked directly into Matan's lens. However, just after, the encounter became even more special as the mother returned to feed her little ones.

Above: the mother leopard keeps tabs on the photographers

"She is so intelligent; she chose the only safe place around to raise her cubs. She knows when to leave them and when to return," commented Matan in a separate Instagram post. "I love watching her moving around at a precise pace [...]. She is taking advantage of humans, and when she feels uncomfortable, she switches gears and disappears."

The group also encountered a range of other animals in the national park, including the Indian greater one-horned rhino, Indian elephants and the Bengal monitor lizard, which looks like a smaller Komodo dragon.

"Having traveled to over 100 countries as a photographer, I can safely say Bodoland and Manas are among the most magical places I have ever visited," commented Matan in a third Instagram post.

What a truly incredible encounter – and one that the photographers are sure never to forget. I highly recommend checking out Matan's Instagram to see his fantastic work, and also our guide to the best cameras for wildlife photography, where we break down our expert-reviewed picks.

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Bears make for majestic wildlife photo subjects, but get too close and they may just start eyeing you up – either out of self-defence or, worse, as prey, as one photographer recently found out the scary way.

Kai Snyder (kaiseed0), a professional chef and amateur photographer, was out snapping in the Lake Clark National Park Reserve in Alaska when she came across an enormous Alaskan brown bear lapping up water from a river.

After a few moments, the bear’s survival instincts kicked in – it turned its attention to Kai, giving her the most bone-chilling stare. Fortunately for the photographer, the river stood between her and the beast.

Alaskan brown bears weigh anywhere from 200 to over 1,500 pounds (around 90 to 680kg) depending on their sex, the season and their location.

More commonly known as grizzly bears – although not the only type of grizzly bear – they can be found in mainland Alaska, heavily populating the southern coastal regions and the Kodiak Archipelago.

Incidents of Alaskan grizzlies attacking photographers are rare, but have happened.

In 2012, a California hiker was mauled and killed while taking photos of a 600-pound grizzly. Photos recovered from the man’s camera showed that he’d come within 50 yards (45 meters) of the grazing bear, violating park rules that mandate a quarter-mile (402 meter) distance.

While we don’t know how close to the bear Snyder was, we do know that this wasn’t her first encounter with a grizzly. In fact, the Alaska resident has said in other TikTok clips that she’s “so stoked to live in a place where bears walking through the yard is an everyday occurrence.”

I’m glad to see that this latest and viral encounter ended safely for the photographer, and hope to see more of her work soon. There are a couple of shots on her Instagram of grizzly bears that are very nicely composed.

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Camera trap footage may not be the most glamorous form of wildlife photography, but it plays an essential role in modern conservation, especially in monitoring elusive species that are almost never seen by the human eye.

The Amazonian short-eared dog is one of these species. In fact, according to researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) – a global conservation program headquartered in New York City – the canid, which has short legs, small, rounded ears, and a dark coat, is one of the world’s “least-known.”

However, WCS researchers based in Bolivia recently shed new light on this elusive dog, colloquially known as the ‘ghost dog’ in Latin America, by publishing a camera-trap study of the species that lasted 23 years.

For almost a quarter of a century (2001–2024), the researchers ran 34 “intensive” camera-trap surveys across northwestern Bolivia and southeastern Peru, snapping a substantial 4,635 individual images of the Amazonian short-eared dog and documenting 594 independent events.

Above: footage of the elusive short-eared dog captured by WCS trail cams

“Camera-trap surveys provided significant information on the behavior and relative abundance of the short-eared dog, suggesting it is more abundant than previously thought, although it remains a relatively rare medium-sized carnivore,” the researchers noted in the published paper.

According to the scientists, the research also uncovered that the creature has a “strong preference” for intact forest, highlighting the importance of maintaining protected areas and other management units that preserve Amazonian forest coverage.

The researchers also mentioned how the survey is a prime example of how conservation technology and remote sensing (i.e. camera traps) can provide substantial data on one of the Amazon’s least-studied species.

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A UK zoo is set to trial a night vision camera system powered by artificial intelligence in the hopes that it will reveal health issues in animals more quickly.

Marwell Zoo, located just outside the city of Southampton, Hampshire, is set to implement the system this month, which will keep track of animals’ nighttime activity and put AI to work interpreting footage and flagging any unusual behavioral patterns.

The system – which has received over £340,000 (approximately $450,000 / AU$645,000) in UK government funding – is being developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Surrey and will be trialled on giraffes and red river hogs before a wider rollout to other species in the zoo.

“We are delighted to be working with the staff at Marwell Zoo on this exciting AI project that will deliver the first AI health and monitoring system focused on zoo animals,” said Professor Kevin Wells, professor of AI in human and veterinary healthcare at the University of Surrey, in a statement.

“It’s a great example of how academia and conservation organizations can come together to develop technologies that support conservation efforts.”

By monitoring animals’ nighttime activities, the zoo and researchers hope that the system will highlight earlier minor health issues that could potentially develop into more threatening conditions.

They’re also hoping that the AI will provide insight into how lighting, heating, or feeding times influence behavior.

Marwell Zoo has previously used technology-driven systems. In 2018, it collaborated with IBM to test enclosure smart heaters and, since 2021, has worked with the University of Southampton on a project where drones identify and track wildlife.

Laura Read, chief executive of Marwell Wildlife, said that the latest project could "strengthen animal welfare further" by "highlighting those extra details that can be difficult to spot with the human eye".

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I remember a few years ago seeing a picture of a terrifyingly ugly shark that went viral. It had this protruding mouth packed with razor-sharp teeth and a long pointed head.

It turns out that this was a goblin shark, which quickly gained the reputation of the world's “ugliest” sea creature. Now researchers have captured footage of these less-than-stellar-looking fish in their natural habitats for the first time.

Australian scientists from the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre video the fish during a research project in the Tonga Trench – the second-deepest marine trench in the world – in 2024.

In 2019, in another region of the Pacific Ocean, researchers from the University of Hawaii observed the sharks near Jarvis Island.

The two sightings of this elusive species, which happened some 1,500 miles apart, have been published together in the Journal of Fish Biology.

“We actually know virtually nothing about them [goblin sharks],” Professor Alan Jamieson, director of the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, told the Guardian.

ABOVE: Footage of the goblin shark spotted in the Tonga Trench

While the species was first discovered in 1898, there have been few sightings of them alive. The sharks typically remain at a depth of around 3,000 feet (approximately 915 meters), with Jamieson explaining that any previous sightings were usually because of accidental fishing.

The 2024 video lasts just over 20 seconds and the individual recorded in the Tonga Trench was captured at a depth of 6,500 feet (approximately 2,000 meters).

Jamieson said the result was only possible due to the sheer amount of footage collected during the expedition, which included over 50 days of continuous filming.

“They [goblin sharks] are ridiculously horrendous to look at,” said Professor Culum Brown, a fish expert at Macquarie University. “Not even their mother would love their faces.”

Brown explained how the sharks are like “something out of a horror movie”, using their long snouts to detect prey and then shooting out their protrusible jaws to snag them.

I’m certainly glad I’ll never encounter one of these terrifying creatures on a wildlife shoot, but it is amazing to see footage of them in their native habitats for the first time ever.

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Two of the biggest names in wildlife conservation, Jonathan and Angela Scott have written and illustrated over 40 books.

The couple became household names through working on the popular BBC TV series Big Cat Diary between 1996 and 2008, where Jonathan was co-presenter and Angela the game spotter and stills photographer.

Most recently they presented Big Cat Tales (seasons 1 and 2) for Animal Planet, 2017-18) and featured in the BBC 2 Documentary Lion: The Rise and Fall of the Marsh Pride (2022).

Based in East Africa, the Scotts work tirelessly to raise awareness of the threat to wild animals as humans undermine their habitats.

As Jonathan puts it: "Eight billion people are driving wildlife off the planet".

One of the couple's signature projects is the Sacred Nature Initiative, which has produced two books so far, with a third one planned.

The Sacred Nature Initiative is built on three pillars, explains Jonathan: "'Inspire', which we hope we can do with our books and television programmes; 'Educate', which is working with young people, getting the message across about how sacred nature is; and 'Conserving'.

"The first book, Sacred Nature: Life's Eternal Dance, is a eulogy to the area that we know best, East Africa's Mara-Serengeti, a wildlife and photographer's paradise.

"Sacred Nature 2: Reconnecting People to our Planet takes a global, landscape approach, focusing on savannas, forests and plants, deserts, mountains, water and the polar regions."

"In the next couple of years, we're hoping to publish the final part of the trilogy, Sacred Nature 3: Life’s Incredible Journey.

"And that will be, in a sense, about us and our personal journey, what we learned and what we hope we can share with other people to help keep them engaged with nature, and the state of the Planet."

Another strand of the Sacred Nature Initiative is the Scotts' Safari Etiquette e-book, conceived to raise awareness of the aggressive tourism fueled by photography for the sake of social media – where the relentless pursuit of getting a selfie is putting animals, and sometimes the phone user, in danger.

Wildlife photography is often more about prioritizing the self-aggrandisement of the photographer – the "look at me" effect, rather than prioritizing the well-being of the subject.

This trend has appeared in the news lately, in another hotspot for safaris. Two of India's major tiger reserves – Ranthambore National Park and Sariska Tiger Reserve, both in the state of Rajasthan – now force tourists to hand their smartphones over to guides or drivers, who lock them away with no exceptions.

Safari Etiquette doesn't take a hectoring tone, though; the Scotts are making a reasoned case for respecting the habitats and environments of wildlife, and they want people to understand the damaging impact that a herd mentality can have when it comes to photography.

We caught up with Jonathan and Angela to discuss their Sacred Nature Initiative – and Safari Etiquette…

There are literally a million photographers taking photographs of African wildlife, whether they're amateurs or professionals.

And there's a huge push now to do things differently for a quick fix – to get low-angle shots, to take photos from outside the vehicle, using remote cameras, drones or whatever.

But that's not our kind of photography. We have taken a different approach by investing our lives in following these creatures, in trying to record every element of their existence without artifice.

As we always say to people, "Isn't nature impressive enough anyway? Why do you have to embellish it?"

Now, if you want to show things differently from how they are, that's fine, but not a big cat growling, snarling or looking at you nervously.

They're in their own world and it's like you are a fly on the wall, inviting the audience to enter the picture and connect with the individual creature, acknowledging that it is a living, breathing, real entity and an individual.

Angela and I might have watched a particular leopard for 17 years, from when it was a cub until the day it died.

Just imagine that kind of continuity. That is what we did with Half-Tail's daughter Zawadi (1996-2012) of Big Cat Diary fame.

We've had the time and access [for our conservation work], and that's what we shared with our audience [Jonathan and Angela spoke at a special event to open the 9th edition of the Xposure Festival in 2025].

They were all photographers and we gave them a preview of our exhibition at the festival and they were completely captivated because, through the stories behind the pictures, they understood what we were doing.

Before the preview started, I asked the audience not to look at the photographs as they might otherwise have done – "Oh, there's a lion, that's a leopard, this is a cheetah".

Instead, I wanted them to see that this particular leopard was Zawadi ('gift' in Swahili), who was in her 17th year the last time we saw her.

When you make a connection with an animal, as people did with Craig Foster's film, My Octopus Teacher, the reason it worked was that the viewers connected with the character of the subject, just as they did with the 'stars' of Big Cat Diary.

Through doing that, you also learn something about the photographer, and while you don't want that to be a primary factor, you begin to ask who this photographer is and what they have done to make this film different.

And it's not because of trickery or gadgets – though they had to use great equipment, of course – but, ultimately, it's empathy, it's creating emotion.

Don McCullin nailed it when he said, "If there's no emotion, if you don't move me, if you don't make me feel the emotion when I look at the picture, then you've failed."

Angela: One of the questions we're asked most often is, "Tell us about when you nearly got trampled or gored".

The truth is that humans are the most dangerous large animal – 99% of accidents with wildlife happen when people don't follow the rules, prompting animals to defend themselves, particularly when they are with their young.

Wild creatures learn from experience that humans can be a danger to them; it's in their DNA.

They invariably try to move away if they see people on foot. Safari vehicles mask the human outline to an extent, which is why big cats in places like the Maasai Mara are so accustomed to people in vehicles.

Safari Etiquette is designed to keep wild animals and humans safe.

Buy the Safari Etiquette e-book

Safari Etiquette: An Essential Guide is available now, priced $12 / £9 / AU$17, from Jonathan and Angela's website.

You can watch Jonathan discuss Safari Etiquette on The Sacred Nature Initiative's Masai Mara Podcast, on YouTube.

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A longer version of this interview appears in the March 2026 issue (304) of Digital Camera World magazine.

You can subscribe and get the magazine delivered to your door every month. Choose between a print or digital subscription, or a bundle of the two.

All print subscribers to Digital Camera magazine can now access digital back issues dating from 2009 (when using iOS) or 2012 (when using the Pocketmags Magazine Newsstand app or the Pocketmags website).

When it comes to working in the field and setting myself up for success, I've tried a lot of different approaches, some of which I'd like to share with you in the hope they might help you too, Paul Nicklen writes.

When I'm shooting, I always remind myself of the left brain, right brain theory: that there are two 'sides' to our brains – the left 'analytical' side and the right 'creative' side.

When you're using the latter, you're seeing the world in shapes, colors, patterns, diagonals, converging lines and so on. You're not thinking too much; you're lost in the creative process.

I'm using my creative brain when I 'sketch' with my camera. It's just my eye, my lens and the scenery in front of me.

Working like that, you're exploring ideas, trying things out. You might be learning about the area where you're shooting, in the knowledge that you will come back later that evening or the next day and shoot some more.

Or you might sit and wait for the stars to come out, or put your camera on a tripod and do a beautiful time exposure.

There are a bunch of different things you can do when you're in that creative space, but you need to allow yourself to come into an area and start to feel, and sketch, and not think too much. Giving yourself permission to experiment is key.

I encourage you to do the same when you are scoping out new locations and setting up a shoot.

You've spent time thinking about camera menus, got to know your kit inside
out, practiced switching dials and changing settings, and so on, so when you're surrounded by beautiful towering Douglas firs in the rainforests of British Columbia, you're able to get lost in the artistic and creative process.

Keeping the camera stable is an important area of field work, too, of course. When I was using Fujifilm Velvia 50 film, everything was about tripod, tripod, tripod.

Today, working digitally, I bring tripods with me on expeditions, but I find I am using them less and less. And I certainly don't obsess about using one.

It helps if you have quick reactions. An animal might be walking towards me, and I can be down on my stomach quickly, shooting a low-angle shot, looking up at and elevating that animal in the frame.

In that scenario, if I'm able to properly support my camera and lens on the ground, a tripod isn’t necessary.

Camera support

If you are using a tripod, make sure it has a ball head that you like working with. There are some complex tripod heads out there, and using them can be fiddly and frustrating.

You could also consider purchasing a video tripod head, so you can move fluidly between video and stills, which gives you options.

Video heads are made for motion. They are more fluid and allow for smoother pans and tilts – essential when tracking a bear through tall grass or following a whale breach.

There are many ways to support your camera, though, you just need to think creatively.

Beanbags can be useful for stability, or even a nearby branch or mound of earth. Think about how you are holding your camera to minimize movement.

I like to rest the tripod plate in the palm of my hand and use the rest of my arm and shoulder for extra support.

I can pull my arm into my chest, and everything's quite stable. Holding the camera in that way gives me control over my focus and the ability to zoom, and I don't rock the camera.

I might be shooting at 1/8sec with a 16-35mm lens and getting good results.

Different focus

I also like to use back-button focus, especially when photographing moving animals – a wolf, for example.

This is where the autofocus function is assigned to a separate button on your camera instead of the shutter release button at the front/top of the camera.

The AF-ON button on advanced digital cameras is designed for this purpose.

By separating the functions of shutter release (taking the picture) and autofocus (AF), the camera will not be constantly refocusing every time you press the shutter release.

This avoids unwanted refocusing and defocusing as you take pictures and gives you more accurate control over where your point of focus is.

Give it a go. Try it in a few different scenarios. Before long, I’ll wager that all your cameras will be changed to back-button focus.

I'm also a fan of the silent shutter. I was slow to come round to mirrorless cameras until I noticed the noise that my camera was making in the field.

I was clacketing away at 10 frames a second. When you're around wildlife, being able to shoot silently is a game-changer.

Another piece of advice I give to mentees is something I'm sure you've heard before, but it's worth saying again: always be ready and prepared.

A good habit to get into, I find, is to set your camera to your standard 'home' settings at the end of a day’s shooting.

When I put my cameras away at night, I leave them at ISO 400, f/8 and on back-button focus, so when I pick up my kit first thing, I'm ready to go.

I keep the batteries charged and have an extra set of batteries to hand. I always keep fresh memory cards in my cameras.

Imagine you're walking along a river, not expecting to see much, and suddenly the most incredible moment unfolds in front of you. A spirit bear or a wolf walks out into the scene, for example.

You grab your camera, but it's set to a five-second exposure, or the 'wrong' focus setting, or the 'wrong' ISO – you might be on ISO 3200, but you really want to be on ISO 400.

You will lose time, or even worse, miss the moment entirely. So, getting into the habit of coming back to those 'home' settings is important.

Get organized

I always keep my lenses and camera bodies in the same spot in my kitbags, so I know where they are and can grab them quickly and easily, and there are always tripod plates on the long lenses – you don't want to be searching for those.

Keeping your kit organized and accessible is key. If you get into good habits, when a scenario is unfolding, you'll be able to respond more efficiently.

You don't want to be locked up in your left brain trying to find the lens you need or trying to find a memory card or a battery. It's easier and frankly more fun to be ready, and will likely lead to a rewarding experience.

A final quickfire tip is, when you're out shooting and you're achy, tired and feeling weak, I encourage you to keep a bottle of 'Try Acting' with you.

It's something we always take with us on a shoot. When somebody on the team starts to complain that they're cold, hungry or tired, one of us will pipe up and say, 'Take some Try Acting' – it's a tongue-in-cheek reminder to tough it out.

Being a photographer sometimes means pushing through your own personal boundaries of discomfort.

You won't always be comfortable when you're working in the field, but when you stick it out and get a shot that you're proud of, the success will taste even better.

Buy Paul Nicklen: A Photography Masterclass

Paul Nicklen: A Photography Masterclass is published by Frances Lincoln, with Masters of Photography (ISBN: 978-1-83600-981-8) and is priced $25/£18.99.

Read more

A longer version of this extract appears in the May issue (307) of Digital Camera World magazine.

You can subscribe and get the magazine delivered to your door every month. Choose between a print or digital subscription, or a bundle of the two.

All print subscribers to Digital Camera magazine can now access digital back issues dating from 2009 (when using iOS) or 2012 (when using the Pocketmags Magazine Newsstand app or the Pocketmags website).

Two US tourists caused a stir in Japan after one of them jumped into the monkey enclosure at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba Prefecture while the other filmed. While it wasn’t long before the Japanese authorities had the offenders in custody, the duo succeeded in uploading the footage to social media.

Now visitors could be seeing even more impact from the stunt, beyond updates to the enclosure. According to The Independent, Ichikawa City Zoo responded quickly by widening the buffer zone around the enclosure – but it is also considering a full ban on photography.

This is the same enclosure that houses Punch, the macaque (snow monkey) that recently became a viral sensation after being pictured cuddling an orangutan plush toy, having been rejected by his mother.

One of the tourists jumped into Punch’s gray-walled enclosure, wearing an obscenely large and exuberantly colored emoji costume, while the other filmed. Later, the investigation uncovered that the two were planning on getting footage with the famous primate to promote a cryptocurrency.

Thanks to the stunt, the zoo is considering a blanket ban on photography. This would be a key change for visitors to the zoo, but my concern is that the potential ban could have far wider effects.

It's thanks to photographers (the ones who didn't dangerously decide to jump into the enclosure) that we have stories like Punch's viral stuffed animal. Cameras tell stories that transcend geographic and language barriers.

But my concern over a ban on photography at zoos goes beyond limiting feel-good stories like Punch's plush toy. Photos and videos from zoos have the ability to influence the animals' welfare by showing living conditions.

The welfare of animals in captivity often relies on policies based on public consensus, which can be informed by viral videos like that of Punch. Numerous viral videos of captive animals have gone on to spark public outcry and advocacy group responses that, in some cases, resulted in positive changes.

Barren enclosures with gray walls, concrete floors or deep pits are something that animal welfare organizations, notably PETA, have particularly campaigned against. Photos and videos show the reality of living conditions, and banning cameras could prevent these change-sparking images and videos from even being taken at all.

I think the video that the two trespassing tourists uploaded to social media reveals a lot about the monkey enclosure at Ichikawa City Zoo. I couldn't stop staring at the barren gray walls of the enclosure housing nearly 50 monkeys.

Now imagine if other zoos follow suit and introduce photography bans. How many zoos around the world housing animals in potentially immoral enclosures would slip under the radar from any potential future press regarding poor animal welfare?

Wildlife photography has the power to draw attention to conservation needs. While I don't consider a zoo to be "wildlife" photography, photos can also prove crucial to the many zoos that play a role in rescuing animals and not just displaying them for profit.

For example, there are legitimate facilities around the world partnering with the United Nations’ Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to house animals seized from the illegal wildlife trade, smuggling operations or illegal private ownership.

In fact, Ichikawa City Zoo is a recognized facility for red panda conservation, with a breeding program that has helped bolster populations of this endangered species. However, we also need to keep in mind that this “rescue branding” also functions as essential marketing for zoos to maintain public support amid shifting attitudes toward captivity.

I hope that Ichikawa City Zoo doesn’t ban taking photos, as I think cameras serve as powerful tools for keeping zoos accountable.

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An elusive parrot species has been captured on camera (and exquisitely so, I might add) for only the second time since first being discovered over 100 years ago.

The blue-fronted lorikeet is a small endemic parrot found only on the island of Buru, Indonesia. It has lime-green plumage, an orange bill, a blue hindcrown and a pointed tail.

First observed in 1920, when scientists spotted a mere 7 individuals, the next sighting didn’t come until 2014, when a photographer using a Canon PowerShot with a 1/400-second shutter speed snapped some important but, unfortunately, blurry images of the bird.

ABOVE: Watch conservationists rediscover the Indonesian blue-fronted lorikeet

Unlike the 2014 photos, these latest images – taken by James Eaton, co-founder of birding agency Birdtour Asia – beautifully capture the rare parrot in its natural habitat.

Eaton was part of a combined team of conservation researchers, expert birders and mountaineers who were searching for the bird to confirm its presence on the island after all these years – which also included John C Mittermeier, director of the Search for Lost Birds at American Bird Conservance.

“I short-circuited with excitement when I realized it was a blue-fronted lorikeet,” Mittermeier said.

Led by a local Indonesian mountaineering group, the crew headed into the previously inaccessible upper reaches of Buru’s high-elevation montane forest, where the bird was speculated to inhabit, eventually spotting two lorikeets after six days of climbing.

During the 14-day trek, the crew also had another sighting of another pair of lorikeets, managing to capture the first sound recordings of the lorikeet’s high-pitched calls.

The blue-fronted lorikeet was listed as 'data deficient' by the IUCN Red List and recognized as a lost species in 2024 by the Search for Lost Birds, a global collaborative conservation initiative.

While it is not immediately clear how many individuals the latest sightings represent, the idea that lorikeets inhabit only Buru’s high-elevation habitats appears to be accurate.

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Although many wildlife photographers work close to home and focus on local species, few can deny the appeal of capturing faraway locations and more exotic creatures. One challenge that nature photographers face is the cost of making trips away, and they often offset this by running workshops abroad or taking paid assignments.

Passionate wildlife photographer Esteban Frey has taken a different route. For the last six years, he’s worked as an airline cabin crew member – and while traveling the world, he’s captured some of his best work on his days off.

Taking photos of elusive animals required time, patience and the passion to succeed alongside plenty of competition. Esteban grew up surrounded by family who were equally as excited about the outdoors, and he combined his appreciation for nature and love of photography, learning everything he could online to improve his technical skills.

After more than 11 years of wildlife photography, Esteban is nearly ready to turn his passion into a profession. I found out what drives him, why Canon is the only brand he’ll use and why he’s optimistic about the conservation of the natural world.

A longer version of this interview originally appeared in Issue 215 of PhotoPlus magazine.

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Pictures of a quirky octopus discovered by researchers diving at the Galápagos Islands (Ecuador) in 2015 have finally appeared online over 10 years after the expedition, with the species still baffling scientists after all these years.

While the mysterious tentacled creature has been named Microeledone galapagensis, microeledones being small octopuses with a single row of suckers and no ink sac, researchers are still unsure as to how exactly it fits into the octopus family tree and why it was even in Galápagos waters in the first place.

In 2015, a combined team from the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago), the Charles Darwin Foundation (Ecuador), and the University of Bonn (Germany) were carrying out an analysis of the “virtually unstudied” deep-sea ecosystems around the Galápagos Marine Reserve – an ecologically rich area most notably studied by Charles Darwin, the famous British biologist behind the Theory of Evolution.

While operating a deep-sea robot, the team discovered Microeledone galapagensis about 25km / 15 miles northwest of Darwin Island, 1,773m / 1.1 miles below the waves, resting on the volcanic seafloor. After collecting the octopus with the robot’s suction device, the specimen was later studied via CT scanning, which enabled less destructive analysis.

Before the discovery, scientists believed that the octopus family Megaleledonidae (of which Microeledone belongs) mainly lived in the cold Southern Ocean near Antarctica and tended to be large-bodied.

However, Microeledone galapagensis has thrown this into question, as the species is very small, and was found in extremely deep tropical Pacific waters near the equator. Researchers now believe that the Megaleledonidae family is likely much more widely spread throughout the planet’s oceans than previously thought.

On the same dive, the research team also spotted two more individuals nearby, with a fourth Microeledone galapagensis sighted on a seamount roughly 60km / 37 miles away from the original discovery site, suggesting in the published report that the species may actually be established in the deep Galápagos region rather than being a single isolated animal.

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Underwater camera footage reveals hiding spot of critically endangered monk seals that disappeared from beaches.

Underwater footage of marine life is always cool, but underwater footage depicting species that are rarely seen is even cooler. The Mediterranean monk seal is one such species, and scientists have recorded the pinnipeds — the family of fin-footed mammals made up of seals and walruses — in a secret hiding spot.

The footage was captured by researchers from the Tethys Research Institute and the Octopus Foundation, who were investigating monk seal activity around the shores of Greece’s Ioanian Islands. It confirmed suspicions that the animals are using underwater caves with pockets of air, known as bubble caves, as safe resting spaces away from humans.

WATCH: Mediterranean monks seals hide out in a bubble cave near a Greek shoreline

To monitor the monk seals, the researchers mounted an underwater TrendNet camera inside a Blue Robotics watertight case in July 2020, installing it at the flooded entrance of a bubble cave. The camera snapped an image every 5 seconds for 16 days, with a “sturdier” camera deployed in the same location a year later that functioned for 125 days.

Speaking to IFLScience, Julien Pfyffer, study author and president of the Octopus Foundation, said: “When we discovered remotely that several seals were inspecting the waterproof camera less than an hour after we installed it, we were really amazed.

"Very quickly, we had this ‘eureka moment’ because we were looking at the factual confirmation of the intuition they might be hiding somewhere.”

Beach sightings of Mediterranean monk seals have decreased due to historical overhunting and human encroachment on breeding sites.

There are now estimated to be as few as 2,000 left in the wild, with the Mediterranean monk seal being one of just two surviving variants — the other being the Hawaiian monk seal — and its population is thought to number around 800 individuals.

The researchers are now putting forward the study and video footage as evidence that bubble caves, which are often considered marginal habitats, should be treated as primary pupping caves in Mediterranean monk seal habitat suitability assessments.

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A viral video of a captive tiger is ranking up tens of thousands of views – and hundreds of angry comments.

In a video shared last week, a tourist waits while zookeepers lure a tiger onto his shoulders in order to pose for a photo. As a photographer, it should go without saying that I love photos, but the viral video proves that some photos cause more harm than good.

The latest video doing the rounds comes from Tiger World Thailand, located roughly two hours south of Bangkok in Ratchaburi Province.

In the clip, we see a tourist, purportedly from the US, sitting rigidly with a tense look on his face. Climbing onto his shoulders is a huge tiger, enticed by a milk bottle held by an equally nervous-looking zookeeper.

ABOVE: The latest video to have come out of Tiger World

Tourists posing with captive tigers at zoos in Thailand isn’t breaking news. This issue is well documented and has reared its ugly head several times over the years, perhaps most horrendously when 40 dead tiger cubs, some no older than two days, were found at Tiger Temple west of Bangkok in 2016.

Unfortunately, it seems the sad story that transpired at Tiger Temple hasn’t stopped tourists from taking questionable photos with animals being held in captivity at zoos in other parts of the country.

I want to state that, to my knowledge, no official allegations of animal abuse, trafficking or illegal operations have ever been specifically made against Tiger World Thailand. But, to me, that doesn’t change how sick the whole thing is.

Tiger World says that it’s an “officially licensed facility,” distinguishing itself from traditional zoos by not selling its tigers. It says that the “welfare of these majestic animals” is paramount.

Tourists seem to love this place. With just a quick search I found tons of other tourists, seemingly from all over the world, posing with the captive big cats. And when I clicked through to some of their social media profiles, a number of these people even claimed to be animal lovers.

Regardless of whether these tigers were ever truly wild (it’s reported that the majority of tigers in zoos across Thailand are born in captivity), as a lover and occasional photographer of wildlife, it’s disheartening and enraging to see incredible animals reduced to living forms of entertainment.

Pictures with Tiger World's captive felines are big business; at the time of writing, prices for its “premium” tiger-on-shoulders experience start at ฿7,200 (about $220 / £164 / AU$309).

You can only imagine how many tourists these tigers are made to pose with every day. For ฿70 ($2 / £1.60 / AU$4), you can even feed a tiger a piece of meat through the bars of its enclosure.

Notable animal welfare organizations and news outlets have conducted numerous investigations into tiger tourism in Thai zoos carried out over the years. But I just want to put across my disdain for tourists taking photos with captive animals – and I don’t need undercover journalism to justify that opinion.

I’ll never understand why tourists would even think of posing for photos like these, let alone part with their money to do so.

Wildlife photography is about seeing animals in their natural habitats. As someone who’s traveled extensively and been lucky enough to encounter a range of species in their native locations, I can tell you there aren’t many things more majestic, especially with your camera in hand.

Hopefully, this latest video from will spark the internet into working its magic – the video has already amassed a number of critical comments (though, to my chagrin, several are suggesting just recreating the photo with generative AI).

Wildlife photography – the practice of photographing animals that are actually in the wild – is essential to bolstering conservation efforts. Posing with captive animals isn't just dangerous, it's unethical.

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An incredible video of a one-day-old rhino taking its first steps in a national park in India is going viral online, and it’s making me question whether photography and writing are truly my callings, or if I should book a one-way flight to India to work with these adorable animals.

The video shows an adventurous one-day-old Indian greater one-horned rhino taking its first steps. And it was shared by Parveen Kaswan, who is the divisional forest officer of Jaldapara National Park (West Bengal), working for the Indian Forest Service (IFS)

While Kaswan didn’t state whether he personally captured the footage or when it was filmed, Indian travel magazine, Outlook Traveller, recirculated the video on Instagram, mentioning that it was recorded on New Year’s Day…of all dates!

The original footage is now nearing 100,000 views.

The greater one-horned rhino is the only rhino species that lives in India — although it can also be found in Nepal — and is the second largest, behind only the white rhino, which is an African species.

Also known as the Indian rhino, adults of this Asian species can weigh approximately 4,000–5,500lbs (1,800 to 2,500kg) and have a single thick black horn along with an armor-plated appearance thanks to rugged skin forming heavy folds.

Excessive sport hunting and agricultural expansion pushed the greater one-horned rhino to near extinction by the early 1900s, with numbers thought to have fallen as low as 200 individuals in the wild.

However, strict conservation efforts spanning decades have seen the species’ numbers rebound, with an increase of 71% in the last 12 years alone.

There are now over 4,000 greater one-horned rhinos in India, with the majority living in Kaziranga National Park (Assam region) and Jaldapara National Park — the latter seeing its rhino population grow to 332 the day our little friend was born.

What an amazing story of environmental custodianship, and thank goodness the ranger recorded the special moment of a newborn greater one-horned rhino taking its first exploratory steps in the wild.

On second thought, instead of quitting photography altogether, maybe I could become the official rhino photographer for Jaldapara National Park.

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Developing an individual approach to image-making or a personal style is an ongoing process, Paul Nicklen writes.

It's a lifelong endeavor. No one picks up a camera and is the finished article. In fact, I don't think it's possible to reach a definitive place with your photography; the way one makes pictures is always evolving. But that is something to embrace.

By embarking on a life in photography, you are making a commitment to yourself to keep doing the work – developing your eye [see Chapter 8 of Paul Nicklen: A Photography Masterclass] and knowledge [Chapters 7, 10 & 11], nurturing your self-belief [Chapter 5], regularly checking in with your reasons for doing what you’re doing and remaining focused on your goals [Chapter 3].

One of the most useful things I learned at the beginning of my career was how National Geographic magazine edits photography [Chapter 16]. It's a model I use to this day.

Let's say I had shot 10,000 images on an assignment. An editor would narrow down the images to around 1,000 'top' images.

We'd then look at the images together and whittle them down to 500, 200, 100, a top 50, and then 25 to 35 standout images.

Find your style

Those images would make it into the final story 'tray'. (We called it a 'tray' because we used to use Kodak carousel slide projectors that were fed by a rotating tray of slides.)

I mention this because having insight into the editing process and style will help you learn about your style, your way of shooting, and identify those of your images that will hopefully live on forever.

Aside from the 'home run' images, to use a baseball analogy, it's also a chance to identify 'second base' and 'third base' hits – the solid B and C-level images that serve as a supporting cast.

These are the images that capture key journalistic storytelling moments, images that are perhaps not as powerful as those 'big hitters', but that help to tell the story. They're like legs on a table that give the whole story structure.

Clear story

It's important you don't get disheartened if somebody doesn't 'get' your style straightaway. For my first few assignments at National Geographic, none of the editors understood my style.

I am in love with wildlife and nature. I want my images to be either extremely full frame – where you’re looking at the eye or into the mouth of an animal that is taking up the whole frame – or to convey a sense of place – where the animal is just a speck in the distance against a big, beautiful landscape.

Those kinds of images really speak to me, but they are not necessarily what the editors at National Geographic are looking for. What will work as a large fine-art print on the wall may not work in the pages of a magazine.

A strong journalistic image tells a clear story with context and consequence – it's about truth revealed, not just beauty captured. Fine art, by contrast, invites interpretation and emotion, often leaving the narrative open.

So, don't get discouraged if your style doesn't immediately fit with what an editor wants.

Paul Nicklen's '20-60-20 philosophy'

My style is me, it's who I am, it's how I shoot. You have to hold on to that, to believe in what you are doing and chase those little voices out of your head [see Chapter 5].

A technique I often use to push myself creatively and grow as an artist is something I call my '20-60-20 philosophy'.

It is a way to get the shots I need, but also to experiment, to be bold or daring in the way I'm shooting – to break the rules – which I hope will, in turn, lead to images that are a bit different.

When I'm in the field, I'm in the moment, I'm in the zone. I want to spend the first 20 per cent of my time getting sharp images, in focus, properly exposed – something that the editors at National Geographic, or whoever I'm shooting for, want.

Even if it's just for myself, I want to get a core body of workable images. Essentially, you're not putting too much pressure on yourself to make every image a home run. So that's the first 20 per cent of your time – just getting something usable on your cards.

After that first 20 per cent, which I move through quickly, I spend the majority of my time in the 60 per cent zone, where I'm in the moment, using my skillset as an artist, using whatever techniques I've learned.

I might be using rear sync flash to shoot motion blur, which demands precise timing and control over ambient light and the subject's movement – too much light and the blur overwhelms the subject; too little and you lose the motion altogether.

Or I could be taking complex shots where the chance of success is still there, although somewhat reduced.

Bear this in mind

Crucially, I'm pushing myself to the outside edges of my ability, using all my developed skills, all my experience with a camera.

One mistake I see a lot of photographers making is putting on the same lens and photographing the same bear over and over in the same way. It might be a 600mm lens and a bear that's 45 yards (50 meters) away.

At the end of the day, they will have shot the same picture many times; same angle, same focal length, same depth of field or same framing of the subject.

Once I have exhausted that 60 per cent and I'm feeling great about the shoot, thinking I've captured some really creative, artistic stuff – incidentally, that 60 per cent zone is where the majority of my best work comes from – after that, I'll spend the remaining 20 per cent of my time in the last zone where I just try some 'Hail Marys'.

'Hail Marys'

I might be tired, the sun's getting low, and things aren't really working anymore, but nonetheless, I'll keep going for a while longer on the off-chance that something will happen.

I've been underwater in eight knots of current off the British Columbia coast, where all I could do was try something and hope for the best, as there was little chance of getting anything in focus.

I didn't have a tripod to steady the camera, of course, and it was pitch-black, but I could see my dive buddy lighting up the scene with his powerful dive flashlight.

What did I do? I took a 20-second handheld exposure. That's a 'Hail Mary', where the chances of success are slim to none.

In fact, what came from that moment was incredible, something I could never have predicted: I could see light coming off the flashlight and bending over rocks, traveling with the current.

This gave me the idea to use organic dye to track and trace the currents in the ocean. It resulted in an image that ran in National Geographic.

I wouldn't have got the idea of using the dye unless I had seen the light bending across the rocks. The best part about spending time in the last 20 per cent zone is that you grow as an artist.

You are developing skills that are going to help you later in your photographic journey.

And maybe, in time, the techniques that you're testing in the last 20 per cent zone move into the 60 per cent zone, they become part of your regular skillset, and you find you are shooting successful images that push the limits of creativity.

That is how you grow as an artist. And that is what this is all about.

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Paul Nicklen: A Photography Masterclass is published by Frances Lincoln, with Masters of Photography (ISBN: 978-1-83600-981-8) and is priced $25/£18.99.

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A longer version of this extract appears in the May issue (307) of Digital Camera World magazine.

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All print subscribers to Digital Camera magazine can now access digital back issues dating from 2009 (when using iOS) or 2012 (when using the Pocketmags Magazine Newsstand app or the Pocketmags website).

There have been headlines recently about a ruling by the Indian Supreme Court banning camera phones in core tourism zones of the country’s tiger reserves.

According to The Times Of India, the ruling was passed late last year and deemed the devices – and the behavior they elicit from users – too dangerous for tourists and wildlife.

Among the main concerns of the Indian authorities and safari personnel are tourists taking selfies with animals and geotagging images on social media – which alerts swathes of rumbling 4x4s packed with people to the scene, known as “safari jams”.

Since the ruling, at least two of India’s major tiger reserves – Ranthambore National Park and Sariska Tiger Reserve, both in the state of Rajasthan – now force tourists to hand their phones over to guides or drivers, who lock them away with no exceptions of taking them out before the end of the safari.

Banning smartphones in wildlife reserves would undoubtedly help in solving the issues at hand. But, to me, it doesn’t make sense to create rules based on the type of camera you use rather than the behavior of safari-goers as a whole.

After all, photographers with a mirrorless camera can also share their images on social media and take selfies with animals. Of course, it's nowhere near as easily, and most of the time it means waiting until you've pulled your images up on a computer later on – but my point is that the impact of a photo is the same regardless of the device on which it’s taken.

The Supreme Court of India ruling came at a vital time as tiger populations in the country reportedly doubling in the last decade.

And surely, if anything, higher-quality images from dedicated photographers with “proper” cameras inspire more people to overcrowd wildlife hotspots than low-quality “amateur” photos taken on smartphones.

With this in mind, even as a photographer myself, I'm inclined to argue that film, DSLR and mirrorless cameras should be off the cards too.

Where I think the Indian authorities – and authorities worldwide, for that matter – need to focus is on ensuring strict rules around limiting the number of tourists and the minimum distances they keep from animals.

This way, instead of determining who gets to take photos, the rules would simply determine the quality of them, while also stopping stupid tourists from invading animals’ personal space.

Want high-quality images of the species you saw? Then invest in the right camera gear; it’s that simple. Otherwise, enjoy the animals from a zoomed-out distance, or else face criminal charges. That’s my view, anyway.

Do rules like this truly solve the problem of geotagging and subsequent “safari jams”? I guess not, and I’m not sure what the ultimate solution to this would be, but the newly introduced rules in India don’t solve it, either.

If you’re not stopping crowds of people – average safari-goers and professional wildlife photographers alike – from getting close to the animals, then you’re not championing animal welfare, which is what this whole discussion fueled by the Supreme Court ruling in India is about.

As photos shared on social media, whether taken on smartphones or professional cameras, continue to influence safari tourism and animal welfare, we’re either going to have to completely ban cameras as a whole from wildlife reserves, which, in my opinion, would be a step in the wrong direction, or stop people from getting close to animals, regardless of the camera they use.

I'm curious to know what you think…

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Well, this might just be the wildlife photography encounter of the year. Two cheetahs rocked up to a bird hide in South Africa and they got so close, they could have been photographed by a 24mm prime!

The video (below) was shared on Instagram by wildlife photographer and guide Alexander Brackx, who explained that it was the first time the big cats had visited the hide. No doubt they enjoy bird watching, too…

The video starts with a pair of photographers in the frame, Canon cameras and big bird photography lenses set up on gimbal heads, and then pans to reveal the two cheetahs, right up against the viewing hatch. They’re so close, I dare say they breached the lenses' close-focusing distances!

One is rather nervously lying on its haunches, staring directly at the photographers, while the other is resting, nonchalantly, without so much as a care in the world.

The world’s fastest land mammal is also one of the world’s most recognizable big cats – and yet, it’s Africa’s most endangered. According to the WWF, only around 6,500 individuals are left in the wild, spread across just 10% of the African and Asian lands in which they used to roam.

Listed as vulnerable, cheetah populations have been decimated due to a number of factors including human expansion, prey depletion and poaching.

While these two might have been a bit close for some people's comfort, it's heartening to see that this pair isn't just surviving but thriving!

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Ellie Rothnie is one of the UK’s most likeable and influential wildlife photographers. Her career has been built on hard work, professionalism, and her ability to plan. As a Canon ambassador, Ellie has used the brand to capture nature from the beginning, and her journey has taken her from “office worker” to adventures around the world.

Ellie believes that creative style is instinctive and cannot be taught, but it can be encouraged through self-exploration. Her approach is driven by her passion and curiosity for nature and being outdoors. Through her workshops and guidance, she nurtures this passion and inspiration in others, encouraging them to see for themselves rather than follow the rules.

We chatted with her again five years after her last interview in PhotoPlus, to find her professional career at new heights but her warmth and gentleness were unchanged. Discover how Ellie prioritises philanthropy and potential growth, her technical approach – and why the basics of photography are still important – and why having a love for animals will see you through your career.

You turned professional in 2016. What was it that made you leap?

That's when I left my so-called corporate office job, and before that, you probably would call me a semi-pro because I was already earning money from two different sources – the marketing side and the photography. I’d been guiding for a few years up until that point, and writing articles. Buying new lenses and gear with my income. Ultimately, it was an itch, and you have to scratch an itch, don't you? I've never looked back, and I’ve been full-time for eight years.

Tell us about your job as a wildlife photographer. Is your key focus leading the tour?

My job involves a lot of workshops and photographic guiding, but a lot of writing, blogging, seminars, competition judging... I think you just have to take as much as you can. When I first went full-time, for the first year I felt so busy. But then looking at my earnings, I thought, “Oh, okay, let's have a look at this.” 

I set my time into three columns; one was called philanthropy, one was called opportunities for now and another one was areas to work on - potential opportunities going forward. I was then pretty hard-nosed, because anything that didn't fit in there, I turned down. It sounds a bit brutal, but it's helped me focus and get everything done.

It doesn’t sound brutal. As a freelancer, you can be pulled in many directions, and it’s hard without a corporate structure to know where to focus. It just emphasises that photography is as much about the business side as the creative.

That’s right. Having come from working in companies, a lot of those life and business skills were there already. You’ve got to work out how to build your brand, market yourself, and sell your services and the only big difference is that now you're doing it for yourself. It's been a godsend to have that experience behind me.

How do you approach workshops? You must have to adapt your teaching style for individuals to thrive.

Absolutely. The photographers all have different skills, backgrounds, and (probably not best to mention in a Canon magazine) different camera brands. It's been fed back that I'm very gentle in terms of my approach. I don't shout at anyone or dictate settings, but I ask people what they want to get out of it. 

One person might want everything in focus, and another person wants something that's a lot more artistic and so we're down at f/2.8. I can guarantee that even if we're standing in front of the same subject, with 8-10 photographers, everybody will tell you something different because we all interpret what we're seeing differently.

So it’s more about the art of seeing. How do you teach that?

It's going to a spot and saying, “What do you see?” I'll take a quick shot or something and show it to them on the back of the camera. Then we’ll break down what it is they want to capture, be it a behaviour or using the weather in a certain way. It’s such a subjective thing, though.

People often try to copy or emulate the work of photographers they admire when starting, whereas your approach sounds more organic. How do you find your creative style?

My approach is more instinctive than planned, and I think that comes with time. I always say to beginners, to take a look around, and follow people’s work, but use it as an inspiration. That's where I started 20 years ago, working with other people in the industry who I admired and sucking it all up. Finding a creative style is a million-dollar question. You can’t teach it. 

What you can do is encourage people to explore themselves. I've talked about this so much recently, but if you feel it in the heart, then it's right for you. As photographers, we all evolve, as technology, trends and our skills improve. But there’s no right or wrong way because photography is an expression, a view of yourself.

Is it important to learn the basics of photography?

You should understand the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO, how the exposure triangle works and creative concepts like the rule of thirds. These are all helpful guidelines and you can go out and break them. But appreciate what they are, play with them and understand them so you can make your own decisions. 

We're all taught about the importance of backgrounds being nice and clear and not distracting, for example. But I like shooting through things in the foreground as well. It's interesting when you're teaching people how to do this because you're saying “Get down as low as you can”. But then the camera’s still pointing at an angle and I'm pushing them down even lower.

Wildlife photography requires planning, whether going to a certain habitat or checking the weather. But I sense you don’t have a strict idea about what you want from a shoot, which leads to a more open mind.

I do carry ideas around in my head, and I might have something there for five or even 10 years. But it's more about “one day if this situation presents itself, this is what I'd love to get from it.” I don't go out on a shoot thinking, “I've got to get the idea that I've had for the last five years”, because that's a sure way of being disappointed and frustrated. 

It’s important - when you do this as your job - to keep the passion and the love for photography and for being out with wildlife. You do need to research and visit the right location to photograph a Great spotted woodpecker. But then something else remarkable can happen with a different species and that's when you get something unexpected. It's more special.

You’ve been shooting with Canon since your Dad’s Canon A-1 film SLR. What was it like becoming a Canon ambassador last year?

I was invited to apply for the programme and chuffed to bits to get even to that stage. I honestly didn’t expect to get it, but when I did it was a mixture of surprise and speechlessness. To be recognised for what I’m doing – especially for a brand I’ve used all my life – made me very proud.

 I’ve had an amazing journey with Canon and the team are incredible. You’re there to support them, but they also ask “What would you like to learn from us?” It’s a two-way partnership, and being offered that development as a photographer is always pretty special.

What Canon gear do you use today?

Very different. I’ve switched to mirrorless, so I’ve got the Canon EOS R3 and a couple of telephoto lenses including the RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM. There’s the RF100mm F2.8 L MACRO IS USM because I do a lot of macro work, which is a beautiful lens. The Canon EF500mm f/4L IS USM isn’t necessarily in my kitbag, but it’s still one I use and I think I’ve had it for at least 15 years; it’s a testament to the quality of Canon glass.

Let’s talk camera settings. What’s your approach to exposure modes?

A lot of the way I shoot is in aperture priority, as that’s what I like to control. Dad’s A-1 had an aperture-priority AE mode, which might have influenced my mindset. I’m basically using the ISO to control the shutter speed, and I can dial in exposure compensation, which is the basis of my approach for high-key images, for example. 

I tend to shoot as wide as I can, which is why I’m looking for lenses I can get to f/2.8. I want to open it up and let as much light in as possible. I also dial in the white balance. Aperture priority is a great way to control the key elements, but work quickly with fleeting wildlife. Because action can happen quickly. I see a lot of new photographers shooting in full manual mode and getting it very wrong because they’re missing opportunities.

You’ve also had great results with the multiple exposure mode.

Setting up multiple exposures in-camera with my EOS R3 allows me to get gorgeous, creative shots. I’ll usually take a sharp image of the subject first, then I might put the frame out of focus, change the aperture, or even recompose the whole scene for the second overlay. I do that a lot if the conditions are right.

You talked about your three columns of work at the beginning. What’s coming up for you?

Every year I judge the RSPCA Young Photographer Awards, and that’s coming up in September, It’s been running for over 30 years and is a great way to nurture and encourage young talent in the industry. That’s the philanthropy column! I’ve got a workshop for Keyna coming up next weekend, taking a group out there to the Masai Mara. I’m working with Canon on quite a few projects, then it’s Brown Bears in Finland and back to Kenya nearer the end of the year. Always busy!

A longer version of this interview originally appeared in Issue 222 of Photo Plus magazine.

Trail cameras allow researchers to spot skittish wildlife – but when scientists place cameras in the wild, they never know quite what they are going to see. One research group focused on understanding wolves placed a camera on a deer carcass, suspecting potential bobcat activity, and instead captured rare footage of baby cougars.

Earlier this year, the Minnesota Voyaguers Wolf Project received a notification that one of their GPS-collared deer had died. The researchers went out and located the carcass – inside the Voyageur National Park in the northern part of the state – and decided to place two trail cameras in the area to see what animals returned to the site.

The Voyageurs Wolf Project suspected that the animals responsible for the kill could be bobcats, because the deer had been buried in leaves, which hinted at feline predation.

Only four hours after placing the cameras, the researchers were surprised when the animals that reappeared were not bobcats but a family of cougars.

Cougars are rare in the state – the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) says that between 2004 and 2026, there have been only 180 detections of suspected wild cougars. While present in states like Montana and Texas, cougars were considered “locally extinct” in the Midwest, but reports of sightings in Minnesota and Michigan have increased in recent years.

The MDNR says that the new trail camera footage is the first evidence in more than 100 years that confirms that cougars are reproducing in the region.

The footage shows four cougars – a mother and cubs – over the course of several hours. Researchers estimate that the cubs are around seven to nine months old. While the Voyageurs Wolf Project has captured footage of lone cougars eight times in the last three years, all of those sightings were of lone animals.

“Although this is an important starting point for potential population establishment in Minnesota, predicting the future is extremely difficult,” MDNR Research Biologist John Erb said. “These kittens might not survive, potentially getting killed by wolves, a male cougar or vehicles. They may also become part of the founding catalyst for a slow but steady increase in numbers. Time will tell, but we are clearly nearing a point where the probability of a self-sustaining population has increased.”

Although researchers are hesitant, the footage is a sign of hope for the animals once thought to be locally extinct in the Midwest. Researchers also confirmed a sighting of a mother and cubs in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 2024.

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Wildlife YouTubers are capturing crazier and crazier footage, and sometimes this footage helps expand our knowledge of the natural world. Well, that’s exactly what Barny Dillarstone, a videomaker from the UK, does as he travels the world capturing images of exotic marine life.

Dillarstone is an established YouTuber, and his signature tool is a night vision camera, which he plunges into the cold, dark depths of the world’s oceans to reveal the weird and wonderful life that inhabits them.

On his latest project, Dillarstone dropped the camera to 700ft (213m) into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Nusa Penida, an island that forms part of the province of Bali, Indonesia, and is known to locals as “Black Magic Island.”

Dillarstone plunged the camera into the pitch-dark nighttime waters with bait attached to attract visitors. Speaking to Surfer, he said: “Across several days, we recorded all sorts of strange deepwater creatures, including hound sharks, moray eels, and enormous stingrays.”

According to Dillarstone, this is the first time anyone has recorded at night here, and also the first time footage has revealed an Indonesian hound shark alive in the wild. In the YouTube video Dillarstone published following the project, he says that he “consulted experts” who confirmed this.

Perhaps more frightening than an elusive shark is the giant stingaree that was also caught on camera. In the interview with Surfer, Dillarstone said: “This is the biggest [ray] of them all — the giant stingaree. This male is not only enormous — it’s as long as I am tall — but strong and determined.”

He went on to explain: “Its power is extraordinary, with jaws designed to crush hard-shelled prey on the seabed. Needless to say, the sharks were happy watching from a distance.”

It never fails to blow my mind just how advanced camera technologies are getting, and I hope people like Barny Dillarstone continue capturing world-first footage of our oceans’ fascinating inhabitants.

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I was hiking through a wildlife refuge, camera with a telephoto slung around my neck, the spring sun warming my skin, when I realized something: I don’t head out on a wildlife photography hike for the photos.

I’m a professional portrait and wedding photographer and these shoots are all about the photos. I want portraits of my family to hang on my walls, and so do my clients.

But when I head out on a hike with my camera and a wildlife lens, sometimes, the photos will sit on a memory card for weeks, untouched. Do I like having wildlife photos? Absolutely. Do I hang some of them on my walls? Also yes.

But while I love wildlife photos, the photos are secondary to the experience of taking those photos.

For me, wildlife photography is self-care. When my stress levels are reaching their peak, taking a walk through nature with a camera is like hitting an instant reset button. The sun is on my face, the wind is in my hair, and I finally feel like I can fully exhale.

Getting outside has always been my biggest way to de-stress, but there’s something about bringing a camera with me that brings this experience up another level. I’m not just in nature, I’m part of nature, a quiet observer. I’m watching a mink emerge from the water with a fresh meal; I’m admiring the tree swallows flitting around building their nests.

The camera gives me permission to slow down. When there’s a camera in my hand, the only one annoyed that it has taken me 45 minutes to walk a mile is my Apple Watch. (Hey, Apple, could you please add a “wildlife photography hike” mode?)

Wildlife photography is a photography genre that’s all about observation. I can’t ask the subject to pose for me. I can’t drag out creative off-camera lighting. I’m fully present in the moment, watching it unfold, my only control over what happens is left to the settings on my camera, the framing that I choose, and when I press the shutter button.

I love wildlife photos. They serve as a record of the things I have witnessed in nature. They decorate my walls. With the photos, I can share the quiet moments that I had, and hope that those who are viewing them can have a small quiet moment too.

But for me, the photographs are secondary to the experience of taking the photos. The modern world is full of bad news and hectic schedules, and wildlife photography is the slow down that my soul craves.

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Scientists have used camera traps to witness all sorts of wildlife behaviour, but never have I seen footage of animals bathing their food in water before eating it like humans do, until now.

The bizarre footage was captured by researchers in the Montes de Toledo range in central Spain, who observed two different wild Iberian lynxes (big cats) seemingly bathing their dead prey in water before eating it.

The first instance of the strange behavior was captured in 2020, when a female Iberian lynx, which the researchers named Luna, carried a dead rabbit over to a water trough. At first the researchers thought she was thirsty, but then she began dunking the dead rabbit into the trough.

In total, this behavior was observed in five different lynxes on eight separate occasions over a period of five years between 2020 and 2025. The second sightings came in 2023, when Luna and another female Iberian lynx from a nearby territory were again seen washing dead rabbits in a water trough.

This study marks the first time that wildlife researchers had observed a carnivore species bathing its prey after killing it. Food-washing or soaking behaviors have been documented in some primates, birds, and raccoons, but mostly animals that are captive and among frugivorous – animals that primarily live off fruit – or omnivorous species.

The scientists behind the study, led by Dr José Jiménez of the Spanish National Research Council, believe that the wild cats may be trying to improve hydration or make it easier for their cubs to transition to solid food.

Dr Jiménez and his research team had been monitoring Iberian lynxes with camera traps since 2014 to study the wild cats’ survival rate, population and reproduction.

The species, endemic to the Iberian Peninsula, was once on the brink of extinction: In 2002, fewer than 100 remained, and only 27 were breeding females. However, conservation efforts have seen their numbers grow to over 2,400 by 2024.

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Spring is the time to shoot flowers in bloom, and a sea of bluebells in a forest are a real favourite of mine to photograph in the UK. It all comes down to a great location and soft sunlight when you’re photographing bluebells in woods, and some key camera skills, of course!

It’s taken me a few years to find the best location in my local area. Although several woods near me have bluebells, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I found a fantastic forest on top of a hill, with big blankets of bluebells filling large areas of the forest floor. And this week I also discovered another new location not far from Bristol – which fast became my favourite spot!

For the best, densely populated areas of bluebells, you ideally need forests with thinner and taller trees with less foliage lower down their trunks. This enables sunlight to reach the flowers so they bloom and flourish in Spring. Bluebells in the UK usually flower around mid April to mid May, but it varies depending how mild it is come Spring.

This year they came a couple of weeks early in my part of the UK, which caught many of us landscape photographers out. Fortunately, the bluebells are still at their peak right now in many places.

So you need to be quick! As soon as the forest canopies start to grow new leaves, the bluebells won’t get enough sunlight, and quickly disappear.

It’s best to find a forest that has defined edges, so the sun reaches inside to light the flowers, and also so that you’re not shooting inside a dark wood, and get a nicer, more photogenic and atmospheric scene.

You’ll also need to nail your camera skills, using the right aperture and focal length, bracketing your exposures, and get your composition right for the best shots, as I show you with the following tips and images...

I shot my bluebell scenes with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV full-frame DSLR, and in Av mode to fix the aperture at f/16 for enough depth of field (DoF) to capture the whole scene nice and sharp. At f/16, this resulted in a shutter speeds around 1/20sec and less at ISO100, as light levels at sunset were dropping fast. I used a tripod so didn't need to worry about camera shake and unwanted blur.

I used a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM lens on my full-frame DSLR. Shooting at longer telephoto focal lengths above 70mm will compress the perspective to bring elements closer together for a frame looking more full of flowers.

First or last light is best for forest flower photos. This will mean the sun is lower in the sky for softer light, plus the sunlight will reach under the tree foliage to light the bluebells below. For my photo (below) we shot towards the setting sun, which was slightly diffused by the taller trees behind the thick area of bluebells.

We also composed so the sun was partially hidden behind a tree. Using a narrow aperture of f/16 has the added bonus of creating a lovely sunburst effect!

Side light can also be very effective for bluebell scenes. For this shot (below), I stood at the edge woodlands, and positioned myself at 90-degrees to the setting sun, and composed to capture this lovely area of bluebells on the hillside underneath the trees. The light is softer and not as harsh, bringing out more the natural colour of the bluebells.

Of course, bluebell flowers also make great subjects for close-ups. Shooting with a wider aperture of f/4 on my trusty Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM telephoto zoom, and focusing closely with a 200mm focal length, has really reduced depth of field so only this single bluebell flower is in sharp focus, with the greenery artistically blurred behind.

Again shooting in the light, the setting sun has lit the area behind, and my focal length and aperture has turned the highlights into brilliant bokeh!

In Manual mode, I shot at f/4, 1/80 sec and ISO200. With my camera settings all sorted, I could get down low with my tripod, and zoom in to focus on individual flowers for a more atmospheric shot packed with colour. Using tripods will enable you to fine-tune your compositions and ensure your scenes are level.

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Thanks to cameras, wildlife conservationists in Honduras have spotted a wild jaguar for the first time in over 10 years, further evidencing the importance of imaging technology in protecting endangered species.

Big cat conservation group, Panthera, captured the footage of the "impressively healthy” male jaguar strolling through the cloud forest on the upper reaches of the Merendón Mountain range, at an altitude of 2,200m, on February 06

Not only is this the first sight of a jaguar in the Hinduran wild for over a decade, but it’s also the highest altitude at which the species has been observed in the country, as jaguars typically inhabit areas below 1,000m.

There have only been three sightings of wild jaguars at high altitude in Honduras, and this latest footage is important evidence for researchers tracking big cat movements between Honduras and neighboring country, Guatemala, and further afield.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), jaguars have lost 49% of their historic range in the Americas and, aside from the largest population in Amazonia, all other jaguar populations are classified as endangered or critically endangered.

Speaking to CNN, Franklin Castañeda, Honduras country director at Panthera, said: “Deforestation and poaching are the biggest threats, and we have been working to tackle both.”

Castañeda went on to tell CNN that the latest jaguar sighting was “awesome,” explaining that researchers have surveyed big cats at Merendón Mountain for the past 15 years, and continuously for the past 10.

This new jaguar sighting came exactly 10 years and 2 days after the previous one, and precisely 2m from where the 2016 high-altitude sighting took place. The same camera traps also snapped images of a curious puma and ocelot – smaller feline species – "flirting" with the device.

Panthera’s wider conservation efforts are proving fruitful in 2026 too, as the group recently revealed it assisted researchers in capturing footage of a Sundra clouded leopard on the island of Borneo over a period of 6.5 years. This marks the longest time any individual animal has been surveyed as part of any wildlife study.

And in wider big cat trail camera news, bizzare footage of Iberian lynxes seemingly washing their prey was captured by researchers in the Montes de Toledo range in central Spain. According to the scientists, this was the firs time a carnivore species had been observed bathing its food, much like humans do, after killing it.

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Photographing Arctic foxes in the remote wilderness in Iceland is as extreme as it gets. Battling temperatures of -22°C (-8°F), fierce winds, and blowing snow, even the simplest task becomes a challenge.

While the resilient Arctic Fox can survive in conditions down to -70°C (-94°F), the relentless Icelandic wind makes hunting – and even keeping their eyes open – difficult. These same conditions also test photographers to their limits, pushing gear and technique to the edge.

Photographer David Gibbon is known for his wildlife captures and has led photography tours for a decade. In this image, he reveals the story behind a powerful close-up portrait of an Arctic fox, shot using a pro full-frame DSLR, the Canon EOS-1D X, paired with a 150-600mm telephoto zoom, at 1/800sec, f/6.3, and ISO 1250.

The story behind the still

"This shot was taken on the remote Hornstrandir Nature Reserve, in the far northwest of Iceland, during an annual Arctic fox tour that I run there with my wife Louise. We have been running Arctic fox tours each winter in Iceland since 2017.

"I really wanted to capture what these blue morph (brown but called blue) Arctic foxes endure, by showing a close-up of its face. Although Arctic foxes can withstand temperatures down to -70 degrees, they often struggle to open their eyes when strong winds and a fierce snowstorm kick in.

"While it's well-known that their coats help keep them warm, and their snowshoe feet allow them to work on snow, what is less well-known is how gale-force winds and sub-zero temperatures make it very difficult for them to find food, and some do die due to starvation.

"This Arctic fox could not open its eyes due to the severe winds, highlighted by the visible blowing snow in the shot, while the freezing temperatures saw ice forming across its nose and eyes.

"Reaching Hornstrandir is not easy, as it involves flying to the far north of Iceland and then sailing on both a boat and Zodiac (inflatable boat) across the Atlantic Ocean – often in rough seas – to get to this remote and desolate place.

"Stinging hands while photographing the Arctic fox was an issue, as temperatures dropped to -22 degrees with wind-chill. Focusing was the main challenge, though, as the camera was trying to lock onto the falling snow rather than the Arctic fox.

"I upped the ISO to increase the shutter speed, to freeze the blowing snow and keep the Arctic fox as sharp as possible."

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It’s hard to quantify just how much the use of cameras has helped scientists, especially researchers tracking endangered species who otherwise may never get a sighting of the animals in their lives.

And now, thanks to a network of camera traps and, of course, the researchers analyzing the footage, a rare Sunda clouded leopard has been tracked for a record-breaking 6.5 years across the forest of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo.

This marks the longest period of time a single animal has been followed by researchers in any wildlife study.

The tracking formed part of a wider study into Sunda clouded leopards that lasted 15 years, from 2007 to 2023, relying on a total of 13 remote cameras to shed light on the species’ habits and lifespan.

Above: watch the Sunda clouded leopard, also known as the ‘ghost of the forest’ in its natural habitat

One of the study's key findings sheds light on the lifespan of the female Sunda clouded leopards, who are detected by trail cameras 68 percent less than the males.

Using the camera footage across 6.5 years, researchers were able to estimate the age of one female at about 8.51 years old by the conclusion of the study – which is higher than any other of female, and male, for that matter, whose average recorded residence was 5.92 years.

While the researchers have said that there aren't enough members of this species in zoos to draw solid data, a close relative, the mainland clouded leopard, lived to 20 years of age in a zoo, which re-confirmed the general trend of captive cats living about twice as long as wild ones.

The team of researchers, led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Sabah Forestry Department, identified 52 individual adult Sunda clouded leopards (30 males and 22 females) and nabbed a total of 437 images.

Wild cat conservation group, Panthera, contributed data towards the study as well. “Long-term, large-scale monitoring allows us to move beyond snapshots and truly understand how wild cat populations persist over time,” said Dr. Wai-Ming Wong, director of small cat conservation science at Panthera, for an article on the study published by the group.

He added: “Without it, we risk missing the very dynamics that determine their survival.”

Sunda clouded leopards can only be found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo and, along with the Indochinese clouded leopard, there are thought to be fewer than a combined 10,000 mature adults across the islands.

Following decades of deforestation and illegal wildlife trade, these cats have become increasingly endangered, further highlighting the importance of the recently concluded survey.

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Few individuals have had a greater impact on documentary journalism and wildlife conservation than Douglas (Doug) Allan. The acclaimed photographer and marine biologist died yesterday, April 8, at age 74, while trekking in Nepal.

Alllan was an acclaimed cameraman, photographer, and marine biologist who, over a celebrated career spanning more than four decades, won a combined 12 Emmy and BAFTA awards, and worked alongside Sir David Attenborough on documentaries including Blue Planet and Planet Earth.

The details of his death as yet unclear, but various news outlets have reported that Allan passed away on a hiking trip in Nepal with friends.

Speaking to the BBC, Allan’s management company, Jo Sarsby Management, said: “Doug leaves behind a visual legacy that few could ever match. His work brought audiences closer to the wonders of our planet, inspiring awe, understanding, and deep respect for the planet.”

Allan’s work centered on Earth’s coldest underwater environments, starting out as a research diver with the British Antarctic Survey, based at Signy Island in the South Orkney Islands, before transitioning to full-time filmmaking.

For his research efforts as a diver, Allan was awarded a Polar Medal, and later he captured footage in the Antarctic for the award-winning TV series Living Planet.

In 2020, my colleague and editor of Digital Camera Magazine, Niall Hampton, sat down with Doug Allan to talk about filming in extreme cold. Speaking to Niall, he said: “Discomfort comes with the job – you can’t expect to be comfortable all the time."

Allan went on to explain: “In calm sunny weather, you can work fine down to minus 25 degrees, but throw in just five or 10 knots of wind, and it’s a different story."

Towards the end of his career, Allan continued to stack the accolades. In 2017, BAFTA Scotland awarded him the Outstanding Contribution to Craft prize, and in 2024, he was made an OBE for services to broadcast media and environmental awareness.

In a Facebook post, Allan’s ex-wife, Sue Flood OBE, said: “Doug was a brilliant and incredibly determined cameraman and photographer, who will also rightly be remembered as the passionate conservationist he was, whose legacy is the incredible body of work which has inspired so many.”

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