The Embrace
This photo, titled “The Embrace,” was this year’s Grand Title winner and it really makes me want to get a house cat. It shows an Amur (or Siberian) tigress wrapping its front legs around an ancient Manchurian fir in far-eastern Russia, which is the only place that the rare species can be found. The photographer, Sergey Goshkov, captured this moment after spending more than 11 months watching his hidden cameras throughout the region.
“Hunted to the verge of extinction in the past century, the Amur population is still threatened by poaching and logging today,” Tim Littlewood, the Natural History Museum’s executive director of science and jury member, said in a statement. “The remarkable sight of the tigress immersed in her natural environment offers us hope, as recent reports suggest numbers are growing from dedicated conservation efforts.”
