Across continents and species, these photos from the 2024 edition of The Nature Photography Contest ... More reveal how human hands now shape the survival of creatures that once thrived without us.© Diem Cao, The Nature Photography Contest 2024 Human-wildlife interactions take on many shapes, much like the evolving form of this school of fish in Nurturing the Living, Diem Cao’s stunning submission to The Nature Photography Contest 2024. The purpose of the contest, which invites photographers from all around the world, is to celebrate nature in all its vibrancy. This year, though, it saved a special spot for those quiet, powerful moments when human and animal lives intersect. Beyond Diem Cao’s work, the aptly named Sharing the Planet category includes a few other standout photographs, each a gentle reminder that life on Earth is, at its core, a shared endeavor. 1. Sweet Girl’s Essence By Sina Ritter“Sweet Girl” was a juvenile humpback whale from French Polynesia who met a tragic death when she was ... More struck by a speeding vessel, prompting calls to regulate traffic around the region’s islands.© Sina Ritter, The Nature Photography Contest 2024 In Sina Ritter’s category winner, Sweet Girl’s Essence, a juvenile humpback whale named Sweet Girl approaches diver Rachel Moore with calm familiarity in an interaction that, while remarkable, wasn’t rare for this individual. Known locally for her unusually gentle and inquisitive nature, Sweet Girl was a familiar presence off the coasts of Tahiti and Moorea. Just days after this photograph was taken, she was killed by a fast-moving vessel with her jaw broken and her head nearly severed. The collision occurred in a high-traffic corridor commonly used by ferries traveling at speeds up to six times the recommended limit during whale season. Her story is heartbreakingly common. It is estimated that four to five humpback whales are killed by vessel strikes between summer and fall, while five to six humpback whales meet the same fate between winter and spring in U.S. waters alone, according to a July 2021 study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. Sweet Girl’s death prompted renewed calls for regulatory changes, including a push to lower boat speeds to under 12 knots within a two-kilometer buffer zone of French Polynesia’s islands. Vessel strikes continue to be a cause for concern for humpback whales globally. For juvenile whales in particular, who spend more time near the surface and often explore coastal shallows, the risk is acute and growing. 2. Led To Safety By Richard De GouveiaWhile southern white rhinos are numbered much higher than their northern counterparts, they’re still ... More being poached at alarming rates, putting their status in grave peril.© Richard De Gouveia, The Nature Photography Contest 2024 In Richard de Gouveia’s Led to Safety, a female southern white rhino is guided away through the scrublands of South Africa’s Marataba Camps. It’s a brief moment of calm in what is, by necessity, a tightly orchestrated operation. The rhino is being relocated for collaring, a procedure that enables rangers to monitor her movements in real-time using AI-assisted tracking systems. This intervention is part of a growing set of strategies aimed at protecting rhinos from poachers. Between 2013 and 2021 alone, Kruger National Park lost 60% of its white rhino population. In 2024, South Africa still recorded 420 rhino killings, down from previous years, but still averaging more than one animal killed per day. While dehorning, relocations and collaring have shown localized success, they are no silver bullets. Poaching networks operate with military-grade precision, fueled by a transnational black market where rhino horn can fetch up to $400,000 per kilogram, a price tag that makes gold look cheap. This image is a reminder that every rhino saved today comes at considerable cost, coordination and urgency. 3. Mini Winnie By Renato GranieriMini Winnie is one among just over a hundred rescued western chimpanzees at Tacugama Chimpanzee ... More Sanctuary, a center in Sierra Leone that cares for chimpanzees orphaned by poaching and the illegal wildlife trade.© Renato Granieri, The Nature Photography Contest 2024 At first glance, Mini Winnie captures a tender exchange between species. A caregiver feeds a young chimpanzee at Sierra Leone’s Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. But this quiet and humane moment belies the broader urgency of its context. Mini Winnie is a western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), a subspecies whose numbers have plummeted by more than 80% in the last two decades. The study found a 6% annual decline, driven by poaching, habitat loss and weak law enforcement. Once ranging across West Africa, the western chimpanzee is now extinct in at least three countries and confined to fragmented strongholds in places like Guinea and Sierra Leone. Sanctuaries like Tacugama increasingly becoming the final stronghold for survival. Founded in 1995, Tacugama today cares for over 100 rescued chimpanzees, many of them orphans from the illegal wildlife trade or victims of bushmeat poaching. Rehabilitation at Tacugama involves five phases, transitioning chimps from quarantine to semi-wild habitats within Sierra Leone’s Western Area Peninsula National Park. Photos like Mini Winnie reveal the infrastructure of survival for western chimpanzees quietly operating behind the scenes, one orphaned life at a time. 4. Vulture Restaurant 4 By Alain SchroederVultures at Jatayu vulture restaurant are cared for and provided a safe space to feed on cattle and ... More other animals that die of old age, without the risk of accidental diclofenac consumption.© Alain Schroeder, The Nature Photography Contest 2024 In Alain Schroeder’s frame, a vulture lies cradled in a burlap sling, its head gently supported by gloved hands, as conservationists in hazmat suits perform a routine health check. Taken at Nepal’s Jatayu vulture restaurant, the image captures the clinical, careful and deeply human reality of modern vulture conservation. The bird is being weighed, monitored and protected in a program that has become a model for vulture recovery worldwide. In the 1990s and early 2000s, South Asia’s vultures suffered the fastest population collapse ever recorded in the avian world. Species like the white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) declined by more than 99.9% due to a veterinary drug called diclofenac, used widely in livestock and lethally toxic to vultures consuming treated carcasses. Nepal banned diclofenac in 2006. That same year, conservationists and local communities established Jatayu — named after a mythical vulture from Hindu lore — as the world’s first community-managed vulture restaurant. Here, farmers bring old cattle to live out their final days. Once they die naturally, their drug-free remains are laid out for vultures in monitored “safe feeding zones.” By 2017, nesting sites in Pithauli, where Jatayu operates, had jumped from fewer than 20 to over 70. Tracked vultures from the site have flown as far as Pakistan, proof that the reach of recovery is spreading. Do photos like these inspire you to form deeper connections with the world around you? Take a 2-minute quiz to see where you stand on the Connectedness to Nature Scale.