Incredible animal pictures from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020

A selection of the highly commended images from the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year event at the Natural History Museum in London. Winners will be announced on October 13

Memorial to the albatrosses by Thomas P Peschak, Germany/South Africa: 

Unlikely as it seems, this display illustrates a South African conservation success story. It represents the comparatively smaller number of deaths of seabirds — here shy albatrosses and a yellow-nosed albatross (a longline hook still in its bill) and white-chinned petrels — caught in 2017 on longlines set by Japanese tuna-fishing boats off South Africa’s coast. A boat’s main line can extend for more than 80km (50 miles), with thousands of baited hooks. When small seabirds dive down and bring the baited hooks to the surface, petrels and albatrosses try to swipe their catches whole, hook themselves and drown.

In recent years, more seabird-friendly fishing practices — setting lines after dark, using weighted hooks that sink more quickly, dragging bird-scaring lines — have dramatically reduced the annual bird bycatch off South Africa. It is estimated that every year around the world, more than 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses, are still killed by longlines alone.