See the stunning finalists, cast your vote for People's Choice Award's wildlife photo of the year

Mike Snider, USA TODAY
·3 min read

Whether you prefer big cats, birds, reptiles, mammals or ocean life, there's a photo for you among this year's shortlist of contenders for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award.

Snuggling monkeys, nuzzling red foxes, a statuesque snow leopard, and a stunned spider are among the scenes captured in the 25 images selected out of 38,575 entries from 93 countries by the National History Museum, London.

You can vote for your favorite now through Feb. 2, 2023 on the museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award website. The top five images will be displayed online, along with the other Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners for 2022, announced in October.

Previously: Wildlife Photographer of the Year awarded to woman who captured frantic cactus bee ball

"Voters will have a challenge to choose from this stunning range of photographs which tell vital stories and connect people to issues across the planet," said Douglas Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum, in a statement announcing the competition. "We are looking forward to finding out which of these images emerges as the favourite."

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

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Patience and precision are hallmarks of the nominated photographs. Germany-based photographer Sascha Fonseca, captured an image of an elusive snow leopard in the Himalayas with a bait-free camera trap – animal movements trigger a hidden digital camera – that had been positioned for three years.

Photographer Minqiang Lu carried photo equipment up a mountain for nearly an hour in frigid temperatures to capture a trio of golden snub-nosed monkeys, an endangered species in central China. He spent 30 minutes on a slope opposite the tree where the monkeys huddled, in temperatures of of -10°C (14°F), to capture this image, he said in caption information about the photo.

Many of the photos shed light on industrialization's impact on nature. A picture of a dead perch trapped in a surgical glove taken by Auke-Florian Hiemstra of the Netherlands suggests how waste from the human response to COVID-19 threatens animal species.

Similarly, U.K. photographer Simon Withyman photographed a red fox, which had been wounded while trying to get free from plastic barrier netting at a building site, he said. Local residents left food for the fox and she was eventually caught, treated and released – but died six months later when hit by a car.

Eladio Fernandez, a photographer based in the Dominican Republic, wanted to bring attention to the endangered American eel. The species is in decline and is tightly controlled in the U.S., so Caribbean fishers have become big exporters. Fernandez spent several nights amid hundreds of fisherman at work on the El Limón River to capture the image of them raising their nets as waves came in.

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Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award: How to vote

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