The golden horseshoe
Grand Title Winner: Laurent Ballesta, France
A tri-spine horseshoe crab moves slowly over the mud off Pangatalan Island in the Philippines, accompanied by a trio of juvenile golden trevallies poised to snatch edible morsels ploughed up by its passage. This image is part of a collection called The Ancient Mariner, which also won Laurent the 2023 Portfolio Award. The tri-spine horseshoe crab has survived for more than 300 million years, and now faces habitat destruction and overfishing for food and for its blood, used in the development of vaccines. But here, in the protected waters off Pangatalan, there is hope for its survival.
Birds of the midnight sun
Winner, Urban Wildlife: Knut-Sverre Horn, Norway
From his vantage point inside an abandoned fish-processing factory in Vardø,
