It took three days of searching off Norway's Svalbard archipelago before Sarikhani happened upon polar bears. After the expedition vessel changed course, he happened upon two polar bears in the water. The male then climbed aboard the sea ice and, using his strong claws, created a bed for the evening. 

“I am so honored to have won this year's People’s Choice award for WPY, the most prestigious wildlife photography competition,” he says. “This photograph has stirred strong emotions in many of those who have seen it. Whilst climate change is the biggest challenge we face, I hope that this photograph also inspires hope; there is still time to fix the mess we have caused.” 

Director of the Natural History Museum, Dr. Douglas Gurr, couldn't agree more. “Nima’s breathtaking and poignant image allows us to see the beauty and fragility of our planet. His thought-provoking image is a stark reminder of the integral bond between an animal and its habitat and serves as a visual representation of the detrimental impacts of climate warming and habitat loss.” 

In addition to Sarikhani's winning image, four other photographs were revealed as top vote-getters with a highly commended status. This includes Tzahi Finkelstein‘s charming photo of a happy turtle balancing a dragonfly on its nose and Daniel Dencescu‘s image of a bird-shaped starling murmuration in Rome. 

The five images will be displayed both online and in the accompanying exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, until June 30, 2024. See the top vote-getters of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award.

“The Happy Turtle” by Tzahi Finkelstein, Israel. Highly Commended, People's Choice Award. Location: Jezreel Valley, Israel “A Balkan pond turtle shares a moment of peaceful coexistence with a northern banded groundling dragonfly in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. Tzahi was positioned in his hide in Israel’s Jezreel Valley, photographing shore birds, when he spotted a Balkan pond turtle walking in the shallow water. 

At first, he wasn’t interested in it and carried on watching the birds. It wasn’t until a northern banded groundling dragonfly flew past his lens in the direction of the turtle that his focus changed. 

The dragonfly unexpectedly landed on the turtle’s nose, but instead of snapping up the insect, the turtle appeared to be experiencing pleasure from the interaction as they shared a moment of peaceful coexistence in the midst of the swamp’s murky waters.” “Shared Parenting” by Mark Boyd, Kenya. Highly Commended, People's Choice Award. Location: Maasai Mara, Kenya “A pair of lionesses devotedly groom one of the pride’s five cubs in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. 

Early in the morning, Mark watched as these lionesses groomed one of their five cubs in their territory in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. The evening before, they’d set off to hunt, leaving the cubs hidden overnight in dense bushes. Returning from their unsuccessful mission, they’d called the cubs out onto the open grassland. 

Females raise each other’s cubs as their own, sharing parenting duties. Here the youngster was clearly enjoying the moment of affection and attention.” “Aurora Jellies” by Audun Rikardsen, Norway. Highly Commended, People's Choice Award. Location: Tromsø, Northern Norway “Moon jellyfish swarm in the cool autumnal waters of a fjord outside Tromsø in northern Norway illuminated by the aurora borealis. 

It’s common for this species to gather in their hundreds under the aurora borealis. Sheltering his equipment in a self-made waterproof housing, Audun used a single exposure as well as his own system for adjusting the focus and aperture during the exposure. 

This enabled him to capture the reflection of the sky’s colors on the surface of the water and, at the same time, light up the jellyfish with flashes. Moon jellyfish are common in all oceans and are easily recognized by their four rings, which are, in fact their genitals.” “Starling Murmuration” by Daniel Dencescu, Germany/Romania. Highly Commended, People's Choice Award. Location: Rome, Italy “A mesmerizing mass of starlings swirl into the shape of a giant bird on their way to communal roosts above the city of Rome, Italy. 

Daniel was mesmerized by the movements of the starlings as they formed colossal organic shapes in the sky. Each day, as they returned from foraging, they would gather in large numbers and perform spellbinding aerial shows, known as murmurations, on their flight home to their communal roosts. In a bid to locate the best roosting sites at which to capture the spectacle, Daniel spent hours following the starlings around the city and suburbs of Rome. 

Finally, on this cloudless winter’s day, the flock didn’t disappoint, swirling into the shape of a giant bird.”

  By providing animals with the opportunity to explore and interact with paint, zoos allow the animals to tap into their innate curiosity and creativity. 

Activities and objects that enhance an animal’s life or environment are called “enrichment.” You can see just how much fun they’re having:

@dailymail Such skill. Much art✨ Credit: Caters/FARM SANCTUARY SA #dailymail #pig #pigs #farmlife #cute #skills #love #MaxPlumpJump #TostitosUnspokenBonds ♬ Live Music Classic, Vivaldi, Fun(125601) - air music

Why exactly does painting improve an animal’s mental health and welfare? Whether you’re looking at a chimpanzee, elephant, bird, or dog, all animals possess an inherent desire to explore and interact with their environment. 

Through painting, they can channel their curiosity and creativity into creating something new. This form of enrichment allows animals to express their individuality and provides them with a means of interaction that goes beyond their typical behaviors. 

Engaging in painting activities also provides animals with physical exercise and helps improve their coordination. Painting requires animals to use their limbs and manipulate brushes or other tools. 

For example, elephants can use their trunks to hold brushes and make deliberate strokes on canvas, which not only provides them with exercise but also stimulates their trunk muscles and enhances their dexterity.

  So, what exactly is enrichment? Enrichment is an essential component of animal care that aims to enhance the quality of life for animals in captivity. It involves providing animals with stimulating environments, activities, and experiences that mimic their natural interactions and behaviors. 

Some other types of enrichment include: Food-based enrichment: 

Enrichment encourages animals to engage in different types of behaviors, promotes physical and mental exercise, and reduces boredom and stress. 

Painting is just one of the many types of enrichment that can be implemented to improve the well-being of animals. 

Zoo Atlanta provides a great explanation of all of the mental stimulation involved in the training and execution of creating a painting with their ground hornbills, Zazu and Gumby:

@zooatl Are Zazu and Gumby the very best and most talented birds in the world? No way to be sure we guess but seems like a strong possibility! #bird #birdsoftiktok #training #hornbill #animals #cuteanimals ♬ original sound - Zoo Atlanta

Animal painting as enrichment is a wonderful way to tap into the creative potential of animals and provide them with a stimulating and enriching experience. 

By engaging in painting activities, animals can express themselves, engage in physical exercise, and improve their overall well-being. 

You might even teach your pets to paint using water-based child paints… but it might be a good idea to try that outside if you value your carpets!
Source

Over 30,000 swift bricks—essentially a normal building brick with a hollow inside—have been sold in the country, and more than 10,000 homes have been built with swift bricks incorporated into the design. It’s bizarre the impact humanity can have on animal life. It wasn’t the sprawling British civilization that caused a 58% decline in the small migratory birds called swifts, but rather the renovation of old buildings. In improving the energy efficiency of buildings to slow energy consumption and therefore climate change, British construction ended up sealing up all the small holes in the walls which these swifts used as nesting sites. 

Now though, companies are making swift bricks which are bricks with a hole in the middle for the birds to nest in. One doesn’t need to put more than 3-4 in every wall to transform their housing project into a swift-friendly estate. 

Nevertheless, some companies, like Manthorpe Building Products’ factory in Derbyshire, have already produced 20,000 swift bricks. Ibstock, another firm, has sold 7,000. The bricks came about through brainstorming from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. 

“The great advantage of swift bricks and boxes is that they can work just as well in inner city areas with very little green space as anywhere else,” Dr. Guy Anderson, the RSPB’s migratory birds program manager, told The Guardian. “Swifts can travel pretty long distances to find their insect food – all they need is a nest site.” 

Swifts are amazing animals that spend 10 months of the year airborne. They do everything on the wing. To drink, they skim over rivers and lakes with their mouths open. They prey only on flying insects. To sleep, they close one eye and turn off one half of their brain. They fly all the way down to Africa before returning to the UK to nest. 

At the moment there is a petition in the UK Parliament to make swift bricks mandatory for all UK buildings, something which the government feels by default is the kind of thing that should be left up to local government councils; however it did garner 104,000 signatures. 

The swift bricks are similar to the “bee bricks” which were another idea of how British housing could make room for nature, and which were ruled as mandatory by Brighton and Hove council.
Source

  Djamel Hadj Aissa is an independent photojournalist and passionate wildlife photographer based in Ghardaïa, Algeria. He has thousands of followers on his Instagram account, where he shares beautiful images he has shot of wild animals ranging from snakes to birds to primates. 

In February, Djamel saw one of his posts go viral, but it wasn’t a photo of an animal in the wild. Instead, it was a photo of himself next to the unusual companion he brought on the shoot: a lion cub. 

The Epoch Times explains that Djamel is a member of a prominent family in Algeria that started the first private zoo in the North African country, and that the family currently owns six zoos in six different cities. The lion cub he brought on his trip was one that had been born in his own backyard. 

“As it was the first time for her, she sat on my chair and observed what I was doing,” Djamel told The Epoch Times. “My nephew Fayçal took the opportunity to take pictures and videos of us at this incredible moment. Seeing our position and us gazing together in the same direction, the public loved the photo.” 

After sharing the photo on social media, Djamel received comments from skeptical people who accused him of somehow “fabricating” the image. 

In response, the photographer followed up the post with a video of himself next to his furry friend.

  The photographer first became interested in photography as a teenager at age 15 when he was gifted a camera by his father’s pro photographer friend. 

Djamel then worked for decades as a press photographer before getting into wildlife photography in the mid-2010s and turning his attention to personal passion projects. 

He’s now aiming to grow his career as a photographer, perhaps as a foreign correspondent for an international agency or media outlet, in order to fund his continuing love for wildlife photography. 

 You can find more of Djamel’s work on his YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Source

  An absolute unit of a woolly rhino on display at the Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, UK. The new specimen discovered is a juvenile. Image credit: Chemical Engineer
It is the best preserved juvenile woolly rhino ever found, with a lot of its internal organs – including its hazel-colored hair, intestines, lumps of fat and tissues – kept intact for thousands of years by permafrost. 

The Ice Age creature was discovered in the thawing permafrost in the Yakutia region in Russia’s extreme north in August. It is thought to be the best-preserved woolly rhino found there yet. “The young rhino was between three and four years old and lived separately from its mother when it died, most likely by drowning,” Dr Valery Plotnikov from the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), who made the first description of the find, told the Siberian Times. 

The perfectly preserved rhino was discovered not far from another recent significant find: Sasha, the world’s only baby woolly rhino ever found, discovered in 2014. Sasha, which has striking strawberry blond fur, has been dated to 34,000 years old. 

According to Dr Plotnikov, the newly found specimen has a “very thick short underfur”. Sasha had helped scientists prove that woolly rhinoceroses were covered in thick hair – something only suggested by cave paintings before. 

The new find has added to evidence that woolly rhinos were fully adapted to the cold climate at a young age. Sasha the baby woolly rhino found in 2014 in Yakutia lived 34,000 years ago. Image credit: Albert Protopopov, 

The Siberian Times Currently, the Ice Age relic is still in Yakutia, as ice roads have to be formed before it can be transferred to the region’s capital, Yakutsk, to be studied by scientists.
Source

Since the year 2009, he has been working in this profession. All the sweat and tears that went into his work finally became worth it after he managed to capture a perfectly timed photograph. 

After 4,200 hours and 720,000 attempts, he was able to capture the perfect image of a kingfisher diving directly into the water without a single splash. Every session consisted of around 600 photographs, but none of them pleased him. 

When looking back at all the photographs he took in order to get the perfect one, he realizes the amount of effort that went into it. 

 Image Credit & More Info; Alan McFadyen | photographyhides.co.uk | facebook | twitter Common kingfishers are known to own a bright plumage because it is rather atypical for those birds living in colder climates. 

These kingfishers can usually be found residing close to bodies of water and they catch fish by diving in. Alan developed an interest in wildlife photography after his grandfather managed to instill in him an admiration for nature and wildlife. “I remember my grandfather taking me to see the kingfisher nest, and I remember being completely blown away by how magnificent the birds are. So when I took up photography, I returned to this same spot to photograph the kingfishers,” Alan commented. 

For the perfect photograph to be taken with a flawlessly straight dive and no splash, it required the photographer to be in the right spot and also for the bird to be in the right place. When thinking of the level of dedication it took for Alan to capture this photograph, he expressed, “I never really stopped to think about how long it was taking along the way as I enjoyed doing it, but now I look back on it I’m really proud of the picture and the work I put in.” 

Even though Alan’s grandfather passed away before Alan captured this image, he would surely be filled with pride if he were still alive.
Source

But nowadays, wood carving has evolved to become more of an art form. A form of creative expression that requires skill and has the effect of building an artists’ confidence, strength of character and problem solving capabilities. Wood carvings and sculptures were once used to celebrate a nation’s culture. Inspired by this idea, these Chinese sculptors decided to carve a giant lion from a single tree trunk. 

Lead by Dengding Rui Yao, this wooden lion was born from the collaborative effort of twenty talented people over the span of three years. Needless to say, their mammoth sized work of art grabbed the world’s largest redwood sculpture in the Guinness World Records. 

Standing over 16.5 feet high, 13 feet wide and 47.5 feet long, this sculpture entitled “Oriental Lion” has become a favorite monument for those in the city of Wuhan.
Source

Freya has finally been adopted from Freshfields Animal Rescue Center in the U.K. according to a report from TMZ on Tuesday. The Staffordshire bull terrier was taken in as a six-month-old stray and became famous in May after The Mirror published a report that the pooch had been rejected more than '18,000 times' by potential owners. 

After seeing the British news, Hollywood filmmaker Michael Bay, 51, promised to come to Freya's rescue. Freya who is ‘the world’s loneliest dog’ was chosen to star in a Hollywood blockbuster along with Sir Anthony Hopkins! 

Not only did this turn the doggie’s world upside down; it also introduced her to some A-listers and glamorous filming sets and helped her to find a loving forever home… Freya the pooch spent the first 6 years of her life in a shelter and was rejected more than 18,720 times… so she got named ‘the world’s loneliest dog’ When film director Michael Bay read an article about the pooch, he decided to help by giving the pooch a role in Transformers 5!

 
Source

That's right, the dog. The scenes between Robert Neville (played by Smith) and his beloved German Shepherd, Sam - who was given to him by his daughter as a puppy before she died in a helicopter crash - truly were the strongest of the film. 

They were often poignant, sometimes funny, and, at one point, absolutely heartbreaking. But before you plunge into sorrow remembering how that story panned out for Sam (and if you haven't seen it, SPOILER ALERT: not well), it might be worth knowing that the real life story is much, much happier. 

It turns out that Abbey, the dog who played Sam, is actually alive and well, despite the film's release being well over 10 years ago. Better still, she's still living with the family of her trainer, Steve Berens - who revealed to LADbible that the 13-year-old pooch is now enjoying retirement with his daughter and her kids. 

"She's older now and she doesn't hear hardly anything," he told us. "But she's still kicking, she still likes a ball and likes a bone." Berens, who runs animal training company Animals of Distinction, said that Abbey has 'always been part of the family' since film bosses asked him to find and train a female German Shepherd for the role of Sam. 

He explained: "We got her in the middle of July and then went to camera towards the end of September, so that was a pretty quick transition. She wasn't coming from a training foundation - she really knew nothing. 

"She was trained a lot of the basics that you need for film work, and then directly for those scenes. "It was stressful at first, but she really came on good. She's a good dog and she really learned fast." Berens said that the experience of working with Smith was 'fabulous', and that Abbey was also a big fan of her human co-star. 

He said: "When you work with a lot of actors, they're not that interested in the animal - a lot of actors look at it as something that the audience is going to be looking at instead of them. 

In fact, rumours even began to surface that Smith was interested in becoming Abbey's new owner - something that Berens wouldn't have necessarily been against, but was a little wary of. 

"Kind of through the channels he had mentioned that, but he didn't really say that directly to me," he explained. "I didn't want to see that end badly - you know how a lot of these stars fall in love with their co-stars, and then once they move on to the next picture, they're off and running. 

"If he would have come to me directly, possibly - I don't know. When you train and you spend that much time personally, it's quite a relationship that you develop. She's always been with us, in the house and around our other animals. She's just always been a big part of our family." 

Berens also said that Abbey's training then continued, as after I Am Legend she went onto score other small parts, adding: "Nothing of much substance or was really identifiable, but she had little things here and there. Other than that she's been a pet, a family dog. 

"There are larger companies who turn things over a bit more. We're a kind of a smaller company and it is a little bit more of a personal situation. You know, she's in the front yard right now." Even though Berens says his company is small, that's not to say it doesn't produce big things. Along with Abbey's work in I Am Legend, the trainer has also worked on various Adam Sandler movies, and even provided and trained the dog called Milo in The Mask. 

While he predominantly works with dogs, cars and birds, Berens is used to having to go a little more off-piste. "As an animal trainer you always have your own stock, and if you can work with those you're always wanting to because they're your animals," he said. 

"But it doesn't always work that way, and especially with Adam a lot of times he would write something that was so off the wall that we'd have to go out and find it, and prep it and put it together for the film. It wasn't always exactly what you had." 

But he also believes that every animal is trainable, to some degree. "That's the thing with animal training - it's the art of illusion."
Source

Only when she uploaded the images to the computer, she recognised the familiar shape that appeared right before her eyes: – I thought "oh my God, it resembles a fox or a wolf or something." I didn't know when I photographed what I got. It was amazing, she says. 

Northern lights are common in the arctic region of the northern hemisphere and are caused by the solar wind colliding with the atmosphere. Recent years northern lights have been getting more common, caused by increased solar activity. 

Ms Karlssons picture of the celestial animal has since become a viral success. It has been shared thousands of times on Facebook, but has also raised suspicion. 

Several people have been in contact with the photographer herself, to question the authenticity of the picture. – They think it is fake, but I can assure all sceptics that it's genuine, Ms Karlsson says to SVT Saami indigenous people believe these lights are their ancestors visiting them. The Salteaus Indians of eastern Canada and the Kwakiutl and Tlingit of Southeastern Alaska interpreted the northern lights as the dancing of human spirits. 

They rode on horseback, leading fallen soldiers to their final resting place at Valhalla. In Finland, a mystical fox was thought to have created the aurora, its bushy tail spraying snow and throwing sparks into the sky. 

 Check out other some amazing wolf like photos taken by lucky photographers at the right moment.
Source