‘Horrific and exquisite’ whale rescue picture wins pictures prize

Just moments after Miesa Grobbelaar photographed this endangered humpback whale being free of a sequence, the whale “paused and looked at us, as if saying thanks”, she stated. The image of the rescue effort, which was taken close to the coast of Ha’apai, Tonga, gained the Grand Prize within the Nature Conservancy’s 2025 Oceania Photo Contest.

Grobbelaar and her crew of rescuers had answered a misery name about an entangled humpback whale, arriving to discover a “heavy rusted chain cutting deep into her tail”, stated Grobbelaar in an announcement about her win. They labored “carefully and silently” to free her, till the chain lastly snapped, she stated.

While humpback whales as a species are not thought of endangered, with total numbers having recovered from low ranges seen within the mid-Twentieth century because of extreme whaling, there are nonetheless some populations in danger, together with these discovered off the coast of Tonga. These nonetheless quantity within the low 1000’s, which is round 30 per cent decrease than earlier than widespread whaling.

“It’s horrific and beautiful, it’s humanity’s relationship with nature at its worst and humanity caring for nature at its best, all at the same time,” stated Jarrod Boord, one of many competitors’s judges, within the announcement.

The contest, which was open to photographers from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, additionally awarded prizes in different classes, similar to this enchanting image (above) of a Pluteus velutinornatus mushroom, which grows on wooden, that gained the Plants & Fungi class. Photographer Nic Wooding noticed the hazel-coloured fungi simply earlier than it had opened, returning a few days later to search out it in “immaculate” situation.

Scott Portelli took first prize within the Lands class for his kaleidoscopic time-lapse of stars above a rock face (above) in Windjana Gorge National Park in Western Australia, recognized for its distinctive crimson rocks. It took greater than 600 images to indicate the celebrities shifting through the night time sky, from nightfall to daybreak.

This vibrant photograph (above) of a feminine peacock mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus), taken in Bali, Indonesia, by Peter McGee, was awarded third prize within the Water class. The shrimp is guarding her treasured cargo of crimson eggs, whereas scanning the waters round her.