The Best Shots From The 2025 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Competition [Images] (2025)

[Image: Emmanuel Tardy/2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition]

Everyone is talking about the heartbreaking photo showing a sloth clinging tightly to a barbed wire fence after crossing a road in Costa Rica.

The striking shot of a solitary Asian elephant navigating a waste-disposal site in Ampara, Sri Lanka, is also the kind of photo that rips a bit of your heart out. And this is precisely the power of photography – to make you feel something for someone else far beyond your own experience.

We’re delving into some of the winning/shortlisted images included in a sneak peek of the 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

The winning images will be announced on 14 October, followed by an exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, showcasing 100 standout photographs from around the world.

The select few winning shots have been picked from a record 60,636 entries, with photos ranging from a lion facing down a cobra to magnified mould spores, show the diversity, beauty and complexity of the natural world and humanity’s relationship with it.

The brown-throated three-toed sloth was spotted by French photographer Emmanuel Tardy, who waited for crowds to disperse before taking the photograph, which is titled No Place Like Home. The image highlights the problems facing sloths in Costa Rica, where habitat fragmentation is forcing the creatures to spend more time on the ground as they move between trees, according to a statement from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year organisers emailed to Live Science. The country’s government is now working with nongovernmental organisations to introduce wildlife corridors to help connect them with their forest homes.

Then, in Sri Lanka, photographer Lakshitha Karunarathna captured the gut-wrenching scene of a lone Asian elephant wading through mountains of garbage at a landfill.

For three years, Karunarathna has been chronicling the devastating toll humans are taking on these endangered giants. The Ampara dump, carved into the edge of a protected wildlife zone more than a decade ago, now draws roughly 300 elephants who are lured by food scraps but unknowingly eating plastic that officials say is killing them slowly, one mouthful at a time.

Next is Slime Family Portrait, which captures a strange, otherworldly scene: clusters of mould clinging to a tree in Slindon Wood, West Sussex. Shot by Kutub Uddin, who hails from both Bangladesh and the UK, the image reveals the blueberry-like spore pods of a slime mould – an amoeba-like, single-celled organism – each no bigger than 1–2 millimetres, sitting beside a lone, pinhead-sized yellow insect egg.

Deadly Lessons captures a raw moment in the wild: young cheetahs honing their deadly skills after catching a Günther’s dik-dik in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve. Spanish photographer Marina Cano earned high commendation in the mammals’ behaviour category for the striking shot of three cubs practising their hunt under the watchful eyes of their mother.

Nature Reclaims Its Space reveals a haunting sight: fruit bats streaming from the ruins of a historic monument in Banda, Maharashtra, India. Photographer Sitaram Raul, from India, captured the scene in total darkness, painstakingly manually focusing where he guessed the bats would emerge and relying on flash to freeze their eerie, fleeting flight.

Pink Pose captures a graceful greater flamingo mid-scratch in the Camargue wetlands of southern France. Swiss photographer Leana Kuster, highly commended in the 15–17 years category, snapped the moment while on holiday, watching the birds probe the shallow brackish waters for molluscs and crustaceans.

Essence of Kamchatka captures a wild moment in Russia’s Far East: a massive brown bear foraging along Kurile Lake as a slaty-backed gull swoops past. Indian photographer Kesshav Vikram, highly commended in the 11–14 years category, waited days for the bear to appear, feasting on the rush of sockeye salmon migrating upriver to spawn.

Wake-up Call captures a tense showdown in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park: a lion and a cobra confronting each other. Italian photographer Gabriella Comi snapped the moment after she and a guide spotted the cobra slithering toward two sleeping lions.

Within seconds, the elder lion was locked in a deadly standoff with the venomous intruder. The Serengeti, home to roughly 3,000 lions, is no stranger to raw, untamed encounters like this.

Rutting Call captures a red deer stag in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, in all its wild glory. UK photographer Jamie Smart, highly commended in the under-10s category, had to stretch high to keep the long grass from spoiling the shot, freezing a fleeting moment of raw wildlife energy.

Inside the Pack plunges you into the icy wilderness of Ellesmere Island, Canada, where Arctic wolves roam. Israeli photographer Amit Eshel captured the elusive pack in bone-chilling 35°C, close enough to catch the scent of their breath. Restricted to Canada’s northernmost territories and northern Greenland, these white-grey wolves are unnervingly curious about humans, their isolation breeding both caution and intrigue.

[Source: Live Science & BBC]