“Centuries ago, Inuit hunted the bowhead whale. At that time, whale hunting undoubtedly was part of a complex and very important ritual, if only because of the size of the catch. The position that the ancestors of today's Inuit occupied in the living world involved a relationship with the spirit that inhabited each animal but also their species”. (Photo by Robert Frechette/2014 Sony World Photography Awards)

Commended. In late May, about a quarter of a million snow geese arrive from North America to nest on Wrangel Island, in northeastern Russia. They form the world's largest breeding colony of snow geese. Photographer Sergey Gorshkov spent two months on the remote island photographing the unfolding dramas. Arctic foxes take advantage of the abundance of eggs, caching surplus eggs for leaner times. But a goose (here the gander) is easily a match for a fox, which must rely on speed and guile to steal eggs. “The battles were fairly equal”, notes Sergey, “and I only saw a fox succeed in grabbing an egg on a couple of occasions, despite many attempts”. Surprisingly, “the geese lacked any sense of community spirit”, he adds, “and never reacted when a fox harassed a neighboring pair nesting close by”. (Photo by Sergey Gorshkov/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer)

An instructor (C) adjusts the posture of students of flight attendant major during a training session at Anhui Foreign Languages University, in Hefei, Anhui province, China, May 25, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

Indian folk artists perform during the “Unboxing Bengaluru Habba” or Bangalore festival, an annual citywide festival held in front of Vidhana Soudha, the State Legislature of Karnataka, in Bangalore, India on December 10, 2023. The Bengaluru festival showcases folk dance and cultural diversity that have shaped Bengaluru into a vibrant metropolis. (Photo by Jagadeesh N.V./EPA/EFE)

A tourist splashes water on the frozen Songhua River on December 18, 2023 in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province of China. The water immediately freezes into ice in the frigid air. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Rescuers attend an injured fan lying on the field of the Cuscatlan stadium in San Salvador, El Salvador, Saturday, May 20, 2023. At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured when stampeding fans pushed through one of the access gates at a quarterfinal Salvadoran league soccer match between Alianza and FAS. (Photo by Milton Flores/AP Photo)

An Indian one-horned rhinoceros grazes on a dry wetland at the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra River in Morigaon district of India's Assam state on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Biju Boro/AFP Photo)

Recruits carry ammunition during a military training at a firing range in the Rostov-on-Don region in southern Russia, on October 4, 2022. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the military has recruited over 200,000 reservists as part of a partial mobilization launched two weeks ago. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)