A photo of a swarm of western toad tadpoles swimming in the waters of Vancouver Island has netted a Canadian photographer a prestigious international award.
Shane Gross’s The Swarm of Life has been named the Adult Grand Title Winner in the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards by the U.K.’s Natural History Museum.
It was an “absolute shock,” he told CBC News in a call from London, where he attended the awards ceremony Tuesday night, adding that those sitting around him said the look on his face was priceless.
The photo also won the “Wetlands” category.
Gross, who was born and raised in Regina and now lives in Nanaimo, B.C., is one of two Canadians to be honoured, alongside John E. Marriott of Canmore, Alta., whose photo of a family lynx in the Yukon was crowned the winner in the “Animal Portraits” category.
Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas of Germany won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year award with Life Under Dead Wood, a portrait of a tiny springtail insect and the tiny fruiting body of a slime mould.
The photos were selected out of 59,228 entries from 117 countries and territories, the museum said in a statement.
In Canada, the full Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition will be on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto from Dec. 21, 2024 to May 4, 2025, and at the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria from Feb. 14 to April 27, 2025.
Gross describes himself as a marine conservation photojournalist who is most comfortable in the water. His winning photograph was captured while snorkelling through carpets of floating aquatic plants in Cedar Lake on Vancouver Island, during a picnic outing with his fiancée, Kayla.
The photo shows dozens of western toad tadpoles, a species that has been threatened by development and disease, swimming together toward the light. Gross said it’s part of a daily afternoon migration from the safer, silty depths two or three metres below to the areas with more algae to eat. By late afternoon, he said, “they’re in there by the thousands. It’s astonishing.”
Gross said he has entered the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition every year since 2011, and has had some “highly commended” photos before, but this is the first time he’s won even a category.
“The jury was captivated by the mix of light, energy and connectivity between the environment and the tadpoles,” said jury chair Kathy Moran in a news release.
Competition judge Tony Wu said in a statement that Gross’s photo “immerses us in an epic migration of tiny tadpoles, a scene that most of us would have never imagined existed. By putting us in the midst of this movement of millions, they highlight the fact that beauty and magic exist everywhere, even in the most mundane of settings.”
Gross said wetlands are often overlooked, despite their importance for protecting against droughts and floods. He hopes being featured in this year’s winning photo “ups wetlands on the conservation radar.”
Gross’s work was previously featured in a 2020 CBC News documentary titled Shane Gross: Capturing humanity’s impact on ocean life.
Canadian wildlife conservation photographer Shane Gross has won awards for capturing ocean life and humanity’s impact on it. He tells The National’s co-host Andrew Chang about his mission to create emotional connections with his photographs that will hopefully lead to lasting change.
Host/Reporter: Andrew Chang
Producer: Sean Brocklehurst
Camera/Editor: Jared Thomas
In details about Marriott’s photo, the museum says the photographer had been tracking the lynx for nearly a week by snowshoe, keeping his distance so as not to spook them. It also highlights the threat to wildlife, noting climate change has reduced the prey available to lynx.
Marriott attracted national attention in 2020 when he captured a showdown between two grizzlies, known as the Boss and Split Lip, fighting in Banff National Park.
It’s a wildlife photographer’s dream to see a showdown between two of Banff’s most notorious grizzlies (from a safe distance, of course!).
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year award was founded in 1965.