An emotional scene of an elephant carrying a deceased calf has earned Italian photographer Federico Veronesi the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026.<\/p>\n
While tracking elephants in Namibia’s Huab River Valley, Veronesi spotted an unusual trail of drag marks across the sand of a dry riverbed.<\/p>\n
Following the tracks, he came across a female elephant carrying a dead calf, its leg wedged between her tusk and trunk. <\/p>\n
Initially, Veronesi assumed the elephant was the calf’s mother. But after sharing his photographs with an elephant research project working in the area, he learned that this wasn’t certain.<\/p>\n
Researchers recognised the elephant as a female who had lost a calf several years earlier and said she had previously picked up dead calves belonging to other females.<\/p>\n
For Veronesi, the encounter was deeply significant. “Of all the 20 years I’ve done photographing animals, this is the most heart-wrecking and fascinating and dramatic,” he said, describing it as “revealing of the depth and complexity of the emotions, the feelings of the animals.”<\/p>\n
He hopes the image will encourage people to look beyond animals’ physical appearance and recognise them as individuals with their own relationships, memories and emotions. “It’s a small window that opens just a crack into the complexity of their world,” he said.<\/p>\n