Wild, Raw, And Unfiltered: Here Are The Winners Of The 2025 National Wildlife Photo Contest
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Wildlife photography at its best doesn’t feel staged or polished; it feels alive. The winners of the 2025 National Wildlife Photo Contest capture nature in its rawest, most unfiltered moments, where instinct, chaos, and quiet beauty collide.
From heart-pounding encounters to fleeting, tender scenes, these powerful images offer a front-row seat to the natural world exactly as it is: wild, unpredictable, and breathtaking. Each winning shot tells a story of patience, timing, and deep respect for the untamed forces that shape life in the wild.
#1 First Place, Baby Animals Category By Steffen Foerster
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: San Juan Island, Washington.
San Juan Island’s red foxes were introduced in the 1900s to manage the local rabbit population and have since become part of the ecosystem. Foerster of New York City photographed them from a safe distance to avoid disturbing their behaviors. The foxes get enough stimulation on their own. “During a play session, one of the kits sought comfort from its mother nearby,” he says of this photo.
#2 Grand Prize Winner By Kathleen Borshanian
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: St. George Island, Alaska.
“On the high bluffs of St. George Island, there is a 1,000-foot sea cliff where numerous fox trails cut a path precariously close to the edge,” says Borshanian of this enchanting sun- and fog-dappled scene. As she approached the island’s west end, she spotted a female blue Arctic fox about 75 feet away. Hiding behind a tussock, the Salt Lake City photographer used a telephoto lens to record the moment without disturbing the fox or her kits, sleeping nearby.
#3 Second Place, Baby Animals Category By Robert Cook
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Manhattan, Montana.
Cook of Earlville, New York, was visiting Montana when he heard of a turkey that had taken up residence near the Gallatin River. After spotting the bearded hen and her poults, he located his camera about 50 yards from a stand of cottonwood trees where, as daylight faded, the family returned to roost. “It was such a rare opportunity that I had never witnessed before,” he says.
#4 Second Place, Mammals Category By Mark Panasuk
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
“It was a surreal experience, as the bison just kept walking in formation towards our vehicle,” says Panasuk of Douglas, Wyoming, who snapped this shot from inside a snow coach driven by a park guide in January 2024. Outside, it was minus 20 degrees F. “You can see a heat fog coming off the bison,” he says.
#5 Second Place, Landscapes & Plants Category By Jason Mirandi
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Slatington, Pennsylvania.
Mirandi, a wildland firefighter from Downingtown, Pennsylvania, describes this fall 2024 photo as the aftermath of a back-burn: “a fire intentionally set to consume fuel between a fire break and an oncoming, uncontrolled fire,” lit and managed by crews to contain a 600-acre wildfire near the Lehigh Gap. The image “shows the raw power of fire,” he says, with the “glowing embers and gnarled branches creating a scene of haunting beauty.”
#6 Second Place, Birds Category By Ajay Kumar Singh
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Eker, Bahrain.
In winter, Eker Creek is one of the few sites in a settled area “with some mangrove patches still left,” attracting large numbers of greater flamingos, says Singh of Manama, Bahrain. He shot this photo “in early morning, when it was dark, and the building and streetlights were still on.”
#7 First Place, Young Nature Photographers Category By Leo Dale
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Point Reyes National Seashore, California.
“I’m always on the lookout around dusk,” says Dale of Sonoma, California, who was 17 when he took this photo on a fall evening in 2024. He spotted a solo coyote in silhouette atop a grass-covered hill “as a magnificent, clouded sunset was materializing.”
#8 First Place, Other Wildlife Category By Massimo Giorgetta
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Lembeh Strait, Indonesia.
On a blackwater dive, Giorgetta of Latina, Italy, encountered “a mysterious sea creature so transparent, it’s almost invisible,” he says: a salp, with a mini ecosystem along for the ride, including a juvenile boxfish, crabs, marine worms, and other invertebrates—all within the space of 2 or so inches.
#9 First Place, Mobile Category By Paige Rudolph
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Escondido, California.
Rudolph took this shot at home, which doubles as her place of business: Sage Hill Ranch Gardens, a no-till regenerative farm where “we work with the land and not against it,” she says. “The farm is also my favorite place to observe the fascinating microworld of insects and amphibians,” including this tree frog nestled amid a “miniature jungle” of microgreens.
#10 First Place, Birds Category By Jack Zhi
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: San Diego, California.
Zhi has spent seven years investigating a question with his camera: How do peregrine falcons, the fastest animals on Earth, protect their young? “With sheer speed and agility,” the Irvine, California, resident learned while documenting broods. The mothers were on duty, attacking the much larger brown pelicans when they ventured too close to the nest.”
#11 First Place, Landscapes & Plants Category By J. Fritz Rumpf
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Woods Canyon Lake, Arizona.
What do you see in this photo? Maybe “rays emanating from a distant planet, waves crashing against a cliff or deep furrows in a desert scene,” as the Phoenix-based Rumpf suggests? Think smaller. “On one of my first wild mushroom foraging trips, I found this mushroom, and not recognizing it as an edible one, I almost put it back,” he says of the milk cap. “Luckily, I noticed the vibrant colors.”
#12 Second Place, People In Nature Category By Yhabril Moro
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Pyrenees Mountains, Spain.
In capturing extreme skiers preparing to tackle la Suela de la Zapatilla—or “the sole of the shoe” in English, “one of the most coveted descents in the Pyrenees”—Moro of Villanúa, Spain, “wanted to emphasize the steepness, creating a powerful sense of scale that highlights the smallness of the skiers against the vastness of the landscape.”
#13 Second Place, Landscapes & Plants Category By Jason Mirandi
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Slatington, Pennsylvania.
Mirandi, a wildland firefighter from Downingtown, Pennsylvania, describes this fall 2024 photo as the aftermath of a back-burn: “a fire intentionally set to consume fuel between a fire break and an oncoming, uncontrolled fire,” lit and managed by crews to contain a 600-acre wildfire near the Lehigh Gap. The image “shows the raw power of fire,” he says, with the “glowing embers and gnarled branches creating a scene of haunting beauty.”
#14 First Place, People In Nature Category By Mike Mezeul II
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Grindavík, Iceland.
On February 8, 2024, the Fagradalsfjall volcano southwest of Reykjavík began erupting. That morning, Mezeul of Arvada, Colorado—who had permission to shoot by drone under police supervision—caught this image of a utility vehicle heading south. The van “made it through just a few minutes before the lava covered the road, completely destroying it,” he says.
#15 Second Place, Young Nature Photographers Category By Jasper Jonnalagadda
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Morgan Hill, California.
“Riding my bike under a freeway overpass, I heard some high-pitched squeaking,” says Jonnalagadda, who was 16 in 2024, when he took this photo. “Skidding to a stop and looking up, I saw this group of pallid and Mexican free-tailed bats jam-packed into a weep hole,” illustrating how wildlife have been able to utilize human infrastructure for specific habitat needs.”
#16 First Place, Portfolio Category By Zhengze Xu
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Christmas Island, Australia.
Xu was thrilled to witness two directions of the annual Christmas Island red crab migration in December 2022: thousands of females headed toward the shore to spawn, as well as millions of juvenile crabs relocating to the forest, where they’d spend the next couple of years before starting the mating cycle over again. All that movement amounted to what the Shanghai photographer calls a “rewarding” traffic jam: “I got up every day at 2 a.m., drove in darkness towards the beach, then parked the car and walked [over a mile] with my camera equipment, because the roads were occupied by countless crabs.”
#17 Second Place, Other Wildlife Category By Remuna Beca
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Bimini, Bahamas.
Nurse sharks are among the most commonly seen sharks along Atlantic and eastern Pacific reefs, but this view is anything but ordinary. With only its eye breaking the surface and its barbels—sensory organs equipped with taste buds—in stark profile, this shark peeked at Beca of Pompano Beach, Florida, as it swam by. “I captured our moment of eye contact,” she says.
#18 Second Place, Mobile Category By Jess Steggall
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Plymouth, Minnesota.
While Steggall credits this photo to luck—“I truly didn’t think I got the shot”—she has put ample effort into making her yard a wildlife habitat, planting “hundreds” of native grasses, trees, and shrubs. The green immigrant leaf weevil, an introduced species seen here on an American hazelnut, isn’t considered an invasive threat, although severe infestations can cause damage.
#19 First Place, Portfolio Category By Zhengze Xu
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Christmas Island, Australia.
Xu was thrilled to witness two directions of the annual Christmas Island red crab migration in December 2022: thousands of females headed toward the shore to spawn, as well as millions of juvenile crabs relocating to the forest, where they’d spend the next couple of years before starting the mating cycle over again. All that movement amounted to what the Shanghai photographer calls a “rewarding” traffic jam: “I got up every day at 2 a.m., drove in darkness towards the beach, then parked the car and walked [over a mile] with my camera equipment, because the roads were occupied by countless crabs.”
#20 First Place, Portfolio Category By Zhengze Xu
Image source: National Wildlife Federation
Location: Christmas Island, Australia.
Xu was thrilled to witness two directions of the annual Christmas Island red crab migration in December 2022: thousands of females headed toward the shore to spawn, as well as millions of juvenile crabs relocating to the forest, where they’d spend the next couple of years before starting the mating cycle over again. All that movement amounted to what the Shanghai photographer calls a “rewarding” traffic jam: “I got up every day at 2 a.m., drove in darkness towards the beach, then parked the car and walked [over a mile] with my camera equipment, because the roads were occupied by countless crabs.”DE
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