Image: 'Ice Bed' by Nima Sarikhani (Wildlife Photographer Of The Year) / Instagram
Doha, Qatar: A dreamy image of a polar bear by an amateur British photographer has been voted as the winner of Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award.
‘Ice Bed,’ Nima Sarikhani’s stunning photo of a young polar bear peacefully resting on a makeshift bed carved into an iceberg, has bested 24 other images shortlisted from almost 50,000 entries from around the world.
Captured off the Svalbard archipelago, a record number of over 75,000 people cast their votes to name Sarikhani's picture as this year's winner.
On Instagram, Sarikhani said: "A polar bear carves out a bed from a small iceberg before drifting off to sleep in the far north, off Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.
Having spent three days searching for polar bears through thick fog, the expedition vessel I was on decided to change course. It turned and headed to where there was still some sea ice. Here we encountered a younger and an older male and watched the pair over the following eight hours. Just before midnight, the young male clambered onto a small iceberg and, using his strong paws, clawed away at it to carve out a bed for himself."
Organizers hailed the "breathtaking and poignant" photograph, which they said "allows us to see the beauty and fragility of our planet" as well as being "a stark reminder of the integral bond between an animal and its habitat... a visual representation of the detrimental impacts of climate warming and habitat loss."
