People's Choice Award

A snow leopard scans for prey among the rugged peaks of the Ladakh mountains in India. The winning image was taken during a three-year bait-free camera-trap project high up in the Indian Himalayas, where photographer Sascha Fonseca's camera trap captured the very shy snow leopard in the perfect pose against the beautiful sky.

Sascha has been fascinated by animals since childhood and he started doing photography in 2013. He now travels to remote places like Ladakh with the hope of capturing photos of the big cats. He specializes in camera traps, which allow him to capture close-up images of wildlife that would otherwise be impossible to capture.

The snow leopard's fur means that it is easily camouflaged against its rocky, snow-covered surroundings, and this, combined with the fact that it is most active at dawn and dusk, makes it very difficult to spot. Sightings of snow leopards are therefore extremely rare and occur mostly in winter when they descend from the mountains to hunt. So camera traps are indispensable for nature photographers' work.

A spotted hyena wanders down the highway looking for roadkill in Harar, Ethiopia. In the distance, its pack forges ahead.

A polar bear cub plays among a mass of purple flowers before checking for its mother in Hudson Bay, Canada.

A crested guinea fowl scratches another bird’s head with its beak in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Hundreds of fishers catch glass eels by torchlight in the Dominican Republic. Unregulated overfishing is pushing eel populations into steep decline.

Three endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys huddle together in the extreme cold of the Qinling Mountains, China.

Caribbean flamingos guard their colony of grey chicks in Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Mexico.

A pompilid wasp checks if it has successfully paralysed its spider prey in the Tambopata jungle, Peru.

Considered good luck for the fertility of livestock, a stuffed endangered Andean cat hangs in a shed in the Andes Mountains, Argentina.

A rare African golden cat, known as Africa’s ghost cat, investigates a camera trap in KibaleNational Park, Uganda.

An endangered Mindo glass frog sits quietly on a leaf. As a result of habitat loss, these frogs now only exist in the Río Manduriacu Reserve, Ecuador.

A snow-dusted cat enters a barn carrying a freshly caught common chaffinch in Radolinek, Poland.

Two female muskoxen fight in Norway’s Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park. The battle was ‘short but intense’.

A young perch is found caught in the thumb of a discarded surgical glove in Leiden, the Netherlands.

A gecko hunts for food, scurrying over a lifelike cat mural in Corella, Spain.

The red-dotted yellow beak and piercing stare of a glaucous-winged gull stands out against its snowy surroundings in Hokkaido, Japan.

A leopard carries its prey – a dead baboon – as its still-alive infant clings on, in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia.

Two adult northern right dolphins follow the silvery tail of a younger dolphin in Monterey Bay, California.

Olobor, a famous lion from the Black Rock pride in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, takes a rest.

A coastal grey wolf patrols the mudflats in Vancouver Island, Canada. Sadly, a resident later killed it.

Photographer Sami is observed by a badger close to its sett in a forest near Helsinki, Finland.

A camouflaged snowshoe hare stares directly into the camera in the Rocky Mountain National Park, USA.

A pair of red foxes greet one another with a nuzzle on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

A male Bargibant’s seahorse grips a pink sea fan coral with its tail while carrying its unborn fry in Bali, Indonesia.

A young red fox, badly injured by plastic fencing from a building site, carries a chicken leg in Bristol, UK.