Winning Nature Photos Capture Triumph and Turmoil in the Animal Kingdom

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Now in its 60th year, theWorld Press Photo contest highlights images that visually capture events of the prior year. And this year"s winners are no different, including refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean, children wounded by the war in Syria and Olympians pushing through the finish line.

Butthe images also depict triumph and turmoil in the animal world, where many of the winning selections show how humans come into conflict with naturewith plants and animals usually falling on the losing side of the equation.

The winner of the single image nature category, by Spanish photographer Francis Prez, depicts a sea turtle photographed near Tenerife in the Canary Islands wrapped up in afishing net. Despite many attempts tolimit the use of plastics, the troubles with marine debris have persistednot only wrapping around sea lifebut also poisoningthem.

A wild leopard takes a nightime stroll through Sanjay Gandhi National Park, a protected area in the northern part of Mumbai, India, in September 2016 (World Press Photo/Nayan Khanolkar)

the second place image also shows how animals navigate the human-mediated world. The shot, captured with a camera trap by Indian nature photographer Nayan Khanolkar shows a leopard hunting in the alleyways of a village in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, just on the edge of the huge metropolis of Mumbai.

Khanolkar, who has been doing wildlife photography for 20 years, strives to "tell the story of how wildlife is coexisting with city life," he says toVijay Singhl atThe Times of India. The shot capturesan area where humans commonly coexist with leopards, Khanolkar notes. But venturing deeper into the city, where fear of the creatures is high, is hazardous for leopards to prowl.

Monarch butterflies on the forest in El Rosario Butterfly Sanctuary, in Michoacn, Mexico, after strong snowstorm in March, 2016 (World Press Photo/Jaime Rojo)

The third place single image is by Mexican photographer Jamie Rojo depicts the forest floor covered in monarch butterflies that froze to death after an intense winter storm hit their wintering grounds in El Rosario Butterfly Sanctuary, in Michoacn, Mexico, west of Mexico City last March. The storm destroyed 133 acres of pine forests in the core wintering area for the butterflies, killing 6.2 million of the winged insects, about 7.4 percentof the 84 million butterflies that overwinter in Mexico, theAssociated Pressreported at the time. Climate change is a major threat to the butterflies, influencing their migration patterns and weather conditions at their overwintering grounds. That, along withillegal logging and pesticide useare the biggest threats to the species.

Brent Sirtons photographs of poaching and poachers in South Africa, which took the top prize in the nature stories categories, document another human-created threat to animals. On assignment forNational Geographiche took a series of images capturing the rhino-horn trade in south and eastern Africa. Sirton writes that while South Africa is has the largest reserve of rhinos in the world, a battle is taking place along the South Africa and Mozambique border. If an animal crossed into Mozambique, he explains, its life expectancy drops to less than 24 hours.

Sirtons images chronicle the carnage fromthe rhino-horn trade, including a freshly slaughtered black rhino left to rot at a watering hole and the recovery of Lulah, a one-month old black rhino who was attacked by hyenas after her mother was poached. Though she lost her ears, part of her nose and was injured in the legs by the attack, she was expected to recover.

Ye Ye, a 16-year-old giant panda, at a conservation center in Wolong Nature Reserve in China (World Press Photo/Ami Vitale, for National Geographic Magazine)

Not every featured image of human interactions with nature, however, isso negative. Ami Vitales second place story-telling entry chronicles the efforts to breed and return pandas to the wild. Also on assignment forNational Geographic,Vitale documents the techniques perfected by Chinese researchers in the past quarter century tohelp the iconic animals procreateand prepare them for life in the wild. Its a great success story, which resulted in the recent controversial decision todowngrade pandasfrom endangered to vulnerable status.

The third place winner in the story category actively tries to avoid any human interactions with wild animals. Hungarian photographer Bence Mt is known asthe invisible wildlife photographerbecause of the elaborate hidden blinds he constructs to get close to his subjects without their notice.

For his winning series of images of African animals ata watering hole at night,he spent 18 nights at the Mkuze Estate, KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa, he tellsNational Geographic. Using a remote-control camera, he took about 15,000 images using a 40-second exposure, which capturesghostly images and blurs of his nighttime visitors, including fallow deer, elephants, water buffalo and hippos.

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Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-winning-nature-photos-world-press-photo-competition-180962162/