The stunning lineup of images that “highlight the diversity and majesty of wildlife, plants, and landscapes” were selected from nearly 30,000 entries.<\/p>\n
The National Wildlife Federation<\/a> announced the winners of its 54th annual photo contest, with a photo of a female blue Arctic fox<\/a> on Alaska’s<\/a> St. George Island winning the top prize.<\/p>\n The stunning lineup of images that “highlight the diversity and majesty of wildlife, plants, and landscapes from across the globe” was selected from nearly 30,000 submissions from more than 3,200 photographers across the United States and around the world, according to the magazine.<\/p>\n See winning photographs<\/p>\n Editorial director of National Wildlife magazine Jennifer Wehunt, in a statement said, the winning selection present “astonishing glimpses of nature\u2019s sheer strength, from an onrush of lava in Iceland to a shimmering burn set to contain a wildfire in Pennsylvania,” and “surprises that defy the everyday: a night bus of nautical hitchhikers, a fox straight out of a fairy tale.”<\/p>\n “That ability to amaze, that\u2019s also the power of nature,\u201d Wehunt continued.<\/p>\n National Wildlife said entries were received from across the world, and photographers who entered the contest ranged from “award-winning professionals to avid amateurs to young budding naturalists” who “help inspire people to care about wildlife and wild lands.”<\/p>\n “By submitting their work, each photographer also supports the National Wildlife Federation\u2019s efforts to protect wildlife species and their habitats\u2014a mission that\u2019s more important today than ever before,” the magazine said. Submissions for this year’s competition were received between Jan. 15 and April 6. Submissions for next year’s competition, meanwhile, open on Jan. 14, 2026, and will run through March 22, 2026.<\/p>\n Competition categories, winners<\/p>\n Kathleen Borshanian won the grand prize of $5,000 for her image of a female blue Arctic fox on Alaska’s St. George Island.<\/p>\n “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,” National Wildlife said about the winning image.<\/p>\n First and second place awards were also given in each of eight categories, including:<\/p>\n CategoriesFirst PlaceSecond PlaceMammalsDeena SveinssonMark PanasukBaby AnimalsSteffen FoersterRobert CookBirdsJack ZhiAjay Kumar SinghLandscapes & PlantsJ. Fritz RumpJason MirandiPeople in NatureMike Mezeul IIYhabril MoroOther WildlifeMassimo GiorgettaRemuna BecaYoung Nature PhotographersLeo DaleJasper JonnalagaddaMobilePaige RudolphJess Steggall<\/p>\n A single winner, Zhengze Xu, meanwhile, was also chosen in the Portfolio category.<\/p>\n The winner of the portfolio category receives $750, while the first place in each of the eight categories wins $500, and second place wins $250.<\/p>\n Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stunning lineup of images that “highlight the diversity and majesty of wildlife, plants, and landscapes” were selected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[13716,3292,1147,228,226,227,223,16705,6105,229,7259,88,15874,23665,7970,3729,13723,74764,74765,6779,14883,3,15360,52507,13470,13471,1068,47872,52505,52506,5573,57539,3795,13692,201],"class_list":["post-341504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-affiliate","tag-alaska","tag-animals","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-books","tag-books-u0026-literature","tag-contests","tag-design","tag-digital","tag-entertainment","tag-galleries","tag-image","tag-literature","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-merit","tag-merit-prizes-u0026-contests","tag-network","tag-network-trending","tag-news","tag-online","tag-online-image-galleries","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-pets","tag-pets-u0026-animals","tag-photographic","tag-photographic-u0026-digital-arts","tag-positive","tag-prizes","tag-trending","tag-u0026","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}