Human/Nature Winner: Sickening Delicacy
Sickening Delicacy by Bence Máté
Not all of the photos on display in The Big Picture contest were pure natural beauty. Instead some of the images were awesome in the oldest sense of the word. In this carefully arranged tableau, photographer Bence Máté documented the horror of human frog poaching in Romania’s Carpathian region. He simultaneously captured the next generation of frogs as well, by including gelatinous egg masses in the frame.
Frogs are widely hunted for their back legs, which are sold as a prized food in many countries around the world. In this instance, Máté told bioGraphic that poachers had killed the frogs while they were spawning, cutting off their legs as they attempted to mate. “It was the cruelty that shocked me most,” Máté said to bioGraphic.
