Wildlife pictures from Bognor Regis to South Africa are among top nature images of the year

Two frogs use a leaf as a brolly to shelter from the rain: Amazing wildlife pictures from Bognor Regis to South Africa are among top nature images of the year. The amazing images, taken by both professional and amateur photographers, were the winners and runners-up of a competition by The Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers.

Taken from all around the world, from Sussex to South Africa, the photographs capture the stunning forms of wildlife, with close-up shots giving an incredible insight into their life.

Read more… Wildlife pictures from Bognor Regis to South Africa are among top nature images of the year | Daily Mail Online.

Hedge-Fund Manager Makes Millions Moonlighting as Wildlife Photographer

A black-and-white photograph of a charging rhinoceros dominates one wall of David Yarrow’s $230 million hedge-fund firm, Clareville Capital Partners LLP, in London. Unlike the art that hangs in the offices of most highflying hedge funds, however, the image is not the creation of an outside artist but rather of the money manager himself. Yarrow, 48, took the impossibly up-close picture in Kenya last year, and in early September sold a print of the image to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — aka Prince William and Kate Middleton — who have since had it installed in their Georgian mansion in Norfolk.

Few hedge-fund managers can successfully oversee millions while pursuing a lucrative side career. Yet Yarrow has done just that by reinventing himself as a wildlife photographer, with exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery and Christie’s in London and a show at New York’s Rotella Gallery in October. Since last autumn, Yarrow has sold more than $1.7 million worth of prints, donating 10 percent of the proceeds to Tusk, a charity that works to halt the trade in ivory and rhino horn in Africa.

See more… Hedge-Fund Manager Makes Millions Moonlighting as Wildlife Photographer  – Bloomberg.

Request for entries: the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards

With just over one month remaining for photographers to enter the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards, the World Photography Organisation reveals a selection of submissions to the 2015 Open competition.

Entries to the Open and Youth competitions of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards will close on 5 January 2015, followed by the deadline for the Professional competition on 8 January. All competitions are free to enter via http://www.worldphoto.org.

Professional and amateur photographers can compete across 25 categories for cash prizes and Sony digital imaging equipment. One professional photographer will be awarded the title of L’Iris d’Or/Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year at a gala ceremony held in London on 23 April 2015.

More images… 2015 Sony World Photography Awards: Beautiful wildlife and landscape images.

Hoverfly kissing a thistle wins photo competition

Photos of flies, fish, snakes, seabirds, a decapitated butterfly and even a decaying zebra have been recognised in the British Ecological Society’s annual photo competition.

More than 200 entries were received – a new record for the competition – showing scenes of the natural world spanning Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.

The winning shot was taken in a back garden in Sweden by Alejandro Ruete, a PhD student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He called his photo, which shows a hoverfly perched delicately on a globe thistle, “Kiss in the backyard”.

A shot of an elephant matriarch leading her family to water was highly commended by the judges.

See more… BBC News – Hoverfly kissing a thistle wins photo competition.

Wildlife tourism in Virunga gives new hope to Congo

After years of civil war that claimed the lives of more than six million people and a long history of corruption and political instability, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not on many travellers’ bucket list.

But there is now one very good reason why they may be more interested. Africa’s oldest national park, the beautiful and other-worldly Virunga, in the east of the country bordering Rwanda and Uganda, reopened this year after the war ended.

It is a magical place, 3,000 square miles of snow-capped mountains, glaciers, active volcanoes, lush mountain forest and savannahs. Yet another battle is now playing out here, one between integrity and greed.

Congolese park rangers are fighting to protect many of the world’s last 880 mountain gorillas who live here – from both poachers and the threat of British oil company Soco International.

Read more… Wildlife tourism in Virunga gives new hope to Congo | Travel | The Guardian.

Galápagos Islands wildlife threatened by battle between locals and scientists.

Wildlife on the Galápagos is under a new threat. The scientific group that has helped to preserve the islands’ giant tortoises and other unique creatures is on the brink of closure – because of a row about a gift shop.

Local traders have objected to the Charles Darwin Foundation running a souvenir shop at its research station at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island. They claim it was siphoning business from their own shops and in July local officials, backed by the government of Ecuador which owns the Galápagos, ordered the station’s shops to be shut.

The impact for the foundation – which carries out wildlife research in the Galápagos and provides key scientific advice on protecting wildlife there – has been devastating.

Read more… Galápagos Islands wildlife threatened by battle between locals and scientists | World news | The Observer.