Banksy fan badger wins hearts in wildlife photo competition

A badger appearing to admire a Banksy – of a badger – has won the Natural History Museum’s 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award.

Captured on a quiet road in St Leonards-on-Sea, England by British photographer Ian Wood, the badger appears to glance up at a graffiti version of itself designed by the mysterious artist.

Ian had noticed badgers emerging from a nearby den to forage for food scraps left out for foxes.

“I spent the best part of two years photographing them, and this particular photo came about as an idea. I thought it’d be fun to put the graffiti there and see if I could get a badger walking underneath it,” he told the BBC.

Ian sees a deeper message in his photo around the controversial subject of badger culling.

Badger culling has been used to contain bovine tuberculosis but will end in England within five years as part of a shift in the fight against the disease, the government said last year.

Ian called badger culling “a national disgrace” and said: “I would swap this award immediately for the government to rescind all existing badger culling licenses.”

The 25 nominated images for this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award received a record-breaking 76,000 votes from wildlife photography and nature fans worldwide.

In addition to the winning image, four other finalists were highly commended.

All five images will be displayed online and at London’s Natural History Museum until 29 June.

A bloodied but determined honey badger pursues a Cape porcupine in Botswana.

After a quick retreat to lick its wounds, the badger returned to finish the job and dragged the porcupine back to its den.

Look very closely – can you see the stoat?

It sits proudly in the snow, blending seamlessly with its surroundings in this snowy scene from Belgium.

Michel d’Oultremont had been on the hunt for stoats in the snow for years, fascinated by how they disappear into the white landscape.

After covering himself in a white camouflage net, he got his shot when a curious stoat popped out of its snowy den to check out its territory before heading out to hunt.

In this stunning shot, a barn owl flies out of an old barn to hunt in the fields near Vancouver.

Jess Findlay spent several nights quietly observing the owl to learn its habits and set up an invisible beam that would trigger a flash when it took off.

With a slow shutter speed to capture the surrounding light, everything came together perfectly on the tenth night as the owl made its move.

This amazing shot shows a double lenticular cloud lit up by the lava from the Villarrica volcano in Chile.

Francisco Negroni visits the volcano often to monitor its activity, never knowing what to expect.

On this particular trip, after 10 nights he captured the intense glow of the erupting lava lighting up the sky in a fiery, surreal display.