Global wildlife populations will decline by 67% by 2020 unless urgent action is taken to reduce human impact on species and ecosystems, warns the biennial Living Planet Index report from WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and ZSL (Zoological Society of London). From elephants to eels, here are some of the wildlife populations most affected by human activity. Here: The maned wolf is among the large mammals in the Brazilian Cerrado that are threatened by the increasing conversion of grasslands into farmland for grazing and growing crops. (Photo by Ben Cranke/Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

Jessica Gomes showcases designs by Jessica Gomes for Jets during the David Jones Spring Summer 18 Collections Launch at Fox Studios on August 8, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images for David Jones)

It looks like a kiss but this male and female blackbird were fighting in flight in Charlton Adam, Somerset, South West England in July 2022. (Photo by Ben Pulletz/Solent News)

Breath of an Arctic fox by Marco Gaiotti, Italy. Marco was watching this little Arctic fox as it incessantly called another nearby. Gradually he noticed the fox’s wet breath was quickly freezing in the air after each call. It was late winter in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, and the air was -35C (-31F). Photographing Arctic foxes is often frustrating, as they are normally running around fast in search of food, but this one was very relaxed and let Marco get close enough to focus on it, with the light glowing perfectly in the background. (Photo by Marco Gaiotti/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021)

Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

An amazing series by Art Wolfe that were taken as part of his “Vanishing Act” in which the Seattle-based photographer shows the talent of animals in disguising themselves from predators. “This collection has been a long time in the making. Finding and filming animals on location is an exhilarating and painstaking process. I’m still adding to the project even now”. Have fun spotting the hidden animals.

A calico sits in its enclosure and suns itself in Hessen, Germany on May 28, 2021. The Opel Zoo presents a walk-in Madagascar aviary for caltas and varis. The primate species is native to Madagascar and is threatened with extinction. (Photo by Andreas Arnold/dpa)

A cygnet keeps snug under its mother’s wing at Heronry Pond in Wanstead Park in east London in the last decade of May 2024. (Photo by Jeff Moore/The Times)