Unseen Images from the 2021 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

“The Proposal” by Greg Harvey.
Animal: Alaskan Brown Bear
Location of shot: Lake Clark National Park
Some call it puppy love. Others may bearly have issue with calling it cubs in love…Either that or one cub is scolding the other for pooping in the salad.

Every year, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards brings a smile to our faces. Photographers enter their best wildlife photography—with a humorous twist, of course—for the chance to win prizes like a safari in Kenya. All this is also to benefit wildlife, with the contest pairing with a different conservation non-profit each year. The 2022 contest kicked off, appropriately, on April Fool's Day and, in celebration, the competition decided to release a few never-before-seen photos from last year.

The high quality of the photos speaks to the incredible pool of photographs entered into each year's competition. From two bears cubs in the middle of a “proposal” to foxes chuckling over what must have been a funny joke, the photos are both technically crisp and full of laughs. They're a great way to get excited for what's to come.

For 2022, the contest has six categories—Creatures of the Air, Creatures of the Land, Underwater Category, Video Category, Junior Category, and Portfolio Category. Their charity partner is the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), a UK non-profit that supports conservation leaders working in their home communities.

As always, the competition is free to enter. The judging panel includes a wide-range of experts like award-winning comedian Russell Kane, underwater film and diving aficionado Luke Inman, and world-renowned wildlife photographers Daisy Gilhardini, Will Burrard-Lucas, and Tim Laman.

You have until September 1, 2022 to submit your entry for this year's contest. Winners will be announced in December.

The 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are now taking entries.

“Photo bomb” by Anne Lindner.
Animal: European Ground Squirrel
Location of shot: Vienna, Austria
Groundsquirrels live together in colonies. However, each groundsquirrel has its own burrow. Not infrequently, they are very jealous when the “neighbor from the burrow opposite” seems to have something much tastier to eat. So it happens again and again that it often comes to small quarrels. On this picture the groundsquirrel just wanted to eat a captured barley. However, the gopher in the background was just about to steal this barley from him.

“Let me tell you a joke” by Fija Mills.
Animal: Foxes
Location of shot: Dunes Noord-Holland, Netherlands
These foxes were laughing their heads of as if one told the other a joke.

The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021
Gerardo Flores
NYC
United States
Title: Brother you can't play hide and seek, you're spotted!
Description: Two brothers in the Masaai Mara and some lucky timing. My wife and I were on the very first day of our trip to Kenya and we're lucky enough to spot two brothers just resting during sunset. We spent a few minutes just enjoying their presence when one of them started rolling on the ground. I took my camera out and started shooting. The result is a cheetah cracking a lovely laugh
Animal: Cheetah
Location of shot: Kenya

“Monkey Reading Newspaper” by Hrithik Singh.
Animal: Monkey
Location of shot: Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
This monkey came to the yard of my house and I gave him bread, wrapped it in paper and after eating this bread, monkey started reading that newspaper.

Get inspired to enter with these unseen images from last year's contest.

“gotcha!” by Hunpin Teoh.
Animal: Blue-striped fangblenny
Location of shot: Weh Island, Acheh, Indonesia.
This blenny was sneakily hiding in and appearing out from the cleave of the corals, playing hide and seek with the divers. To capture this moment, it requires stealth and patience, and finally, GOTCHA!

“Snow yoga” by Shayne McGuire.
Animal: Red Fox
Location of shot: Yellowstone
Fox jumped for a vole, and aced the landing, but go stuck straight up for a few seconds.

“A quick pick” by Rick Beldegreen.
Animal: Mountain gorilla, mom & baby
Location of shot: Rwanda
After trekking for several hours to reach this gorilla family, we were fortunate that there were several infants in the group. All their antics are interesting and entertaining. I was fortunate to catch this youngster involved in a “deep dive” nose pick when Mom wasn't looking.

“The Ministry of Silly Walks” by Nicolas Reusens.
Animal: Steller sea eagle
Location of shot: Hokkaido, Japan
“The Ministry of Silly Walks” is a sketch from the Monty Python comedy troupe's television show Monty Python's Flying Circus. A satire on bureaucratic inefficiency, the sketch involves John Cleese as a bowler-hatted civil servant in a fictitious British government ministry responsible for developing silly walks through grants. This picture really reminded me of this awesome sketches.

“The Original Angry Bird” by Jennifer Beck.
Animal: Least Bittern
Location of shot: Cuyahoga Valley National Park
I had to wait quite a while for this least bittern to emerge, but when it struck this pose it was all worth it.