The wild can be both heartbreakingly cruel and breathtakingly beautiful—and the 2025 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards proves exactly that. Hosted by the German Society for Nature Photography (GDT), this annual competition is one of the most prestigious showcases of nature photography in the world. This year’s winners captured the raw poetry of the natural world—from quiet moments of survival to the chaos of life in the wild.
The grand prize winner, Luca Lorenz, a 20-year-old self-taught German photographer, stunned judges with his haunting black-and-white photo “Silent Despair.” The image tells a tragic yet powerful story: a male Eurasian pygmy owl clutching a doomed mouse, a meal meant for his vanished owlets. The young owl father, left alone after his mate was likely taken by a predator, kept calling into the night for chicks that would never return. It’s a heartbreaking reminder that even in the animal kingdom, love and loss are universal.
Alongside Lorenz’s emotional masterpiece, the 25 winning images capture everything from icy Arctic fox hunts to tender moments between elephants and their calves. Each shot reveals not just skill but empathy—the ability to see nature not as a spectacle, but as a story.
The European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards 2025 remind us that photography has the power to do more than document—it can connect us to the pulse of the planet. Every image is a whisper from the wild, a nudge to care, to protect, and to never stop being in awe.
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#1. Overall Winner: "Silent Despair" by Luca Lorenz
"Silent despair – and not only from the mouse’s perspective! I had spent many days in a German forest observing a pair of Eurasian pygmy owls (Glaucidium passerinum) nesting in a tree hollow, when, one day, the female vanished – probably taken by a tawny owl or a goshawk. About a week later, the young owlets emerged from the hollow and perched on nearby branches, still unable to fly. The male was struggling to care for them on his own.
The morning after the chicks’ first night outside of the hollow, I found the male clutching a mouse in his talons. He held it for minutes on end – an unusual sight. He made no attempt to eat the prey as it was clearly intended for the chicks. Again and again, he called, but the chicks did not answer. As I took this photograph, I felt the despair in his searching eyes. The owlets never returned. Most likely they had fallen victim to a predator during the night. It was a heart-wrenching scene."
#2. Birds – Winner: "Swan lake" by Terje Kolaas
#3. Birds – Runner-Up: "At the top of the food chain" by Audun Rikardsen
#4. Mammals – Winner: "Time for a swim!" by Federica Cordero
#5. Mammals – Runner-Up: "Nighttime hunter" by Csaba Daroczi
#6. Other Animals – Winner: "Amongst the stars" by Tibor Litauszki
#7. Other Animals – Runner-Up: "Night vision" by Ivo Niermann
#8. Plants and Fungi – Winner: "Inferno" by Tobias Richter
#9. Plants and Fungi – Runner-Up: "Hare’s-foot clover" by Theo Bosboom
#10. Landscapes – Winner: "Minimalistic triad" by David Menzel
#11. Landscapes – Runner-Up: "Golden treasure" by Sven Začek
#12. Underwater World – Winner: "Unsung heroes" by Angel Fitor
#13. Underwater World – Runner-Up: "Role reversal" by Jonathan Fieber
#14. Man and Nature – Winner: "Forensics" by Britta Jaschinski
#15. Man and Nature – Runner-Up: "Dangerous meal" by Audun Rikardsen
#16. Nature´s Studio – Winner: "War is near" by Hannu Ahonen
#17. Nature´s Studio – Runner-Up: "Black, white and red" by Anja Brouwer
#18. Young Photographers to 14 Years – Winner: "At dawn" by Lubin Godin
#19. Young Photographers to 14 Years – Runner-Up: "Spider versus lizard" by Mattia Terreo
#20. Young Photographers 15 to 17 Years – Winner: "Predator" by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
#21. Young Photographers 15 to 17 Years – Runner-Up: "Nocturnal race" by Árpád Király
#22. Fritz Pölking Prize: "Liebe, Hass und Klapperschlangen" by Javier Aznar
#23. Fritz Pölking Prize: "Norwegischer Winter" by Tobias Gjerde
#24. Rewilding Europe Award – Winner: "Comeback of the Atlantic sturgeon" by Jon A. Juárez
#25. Rewilding Europe Award – Runner-Up: "The green heart of Bucharest" by Zoltán Gergely Nagy
