Igor Shpilenok works in the reserve at Kamchatka, Russia. Igor is a fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a winner of the 2006 BBC Wildlife Photographer Competition. Igor’s work has been published in numerous international and Russian magazines, including Smithsonian, National Wildlife, Geo, and BBC Wildlife.

“How does a bear behave when encounter a human? In most cases he runs away. But before running he almost always would rise to stand on his rear feet. And this behavior does not indicate the attack, as many people think...” – Igor Shpilenok. (Photo by Igor Shpilenok via Wildlife Photo Russia)

“The leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic (after the southern elephant seal). It is most common in the southern hemisphere along the coast of Antarctica and on most sub-Antarctic islands, but can also be found on the coasts of southern Australia, Tasmania, South Africa, New Zealand, Lord Howe Island, Tierra del Fuego, the Cook Islands, and the Atlantic coast of South America. It can live twenty-six years, possibly more. Orcas and large sharks are the only natural predators of leopard seals”. – Wikipedia

Photo by: Gilad Rom; Source: Flickr

Two keepers at the Australian Reptile Park in New South Wales struggle with Leonardo, an alligator snapping turtle weighing 45 kilos at the park in Gosford, NSW 2 July 2015. The 50cm long Leonardo – who was smuggled illegally into Australia and found in a Sydney sewer in November 2000 – was removed from his tank for an annual health check. And as a gesture to onlooking press photographers demonstrated his strength by snapping a piece of bamboo in half. (Photo by EPA/HO)

Revellers participate in a parade on the street during a carnival in the village of Vevcani, south of Skopje, Macedonia January 13, 2016. Vevcani village marks the annual Orthodox St. Vasilij Day with a carnival that features a 1,400-year-old celebration with pagan roots. The highlights of the carnival include a political satire where masked villagers act out current events. (Photo by Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)

A reveler wearing sheepfur costume is seen in front of a bonfire on which they burn a coffin symbolizing winter during the closing ceremony of the traditional carnival parade in Mohacs, 189 kms south of Budapest, Hungary, 07 February 2016. The carnival parade of people, the so-called busos, dressed in such costumes and frightening wooden masks, using various noisy wooden rattlers is traditionally held on the seventh weekend before Easter to drive away winter, and is a revival of a legend, which says that ethnic Croats ambushed the Osmanli Turkish troops, who escaped in panic seeing the terrifying figures during the Turkish occupation of Hungary. (Photo by Tamas Soki/EPA)

An Indian Hindu widow smeared with colors sits and watches others playing during Holi celebrations at the Gopinath temple, 180 kilometres (112 miles) south-east of New Delhi, India Monday, March 21, 2016. A few years ago this joyful celebration was forbidden for Hindu widows. Like hundreds of thousands of observant Hindu women they would have been expected to live out their days in quiet worship, dressed only in white, their very presence being considered inauspicious for all religious festivities. (Photo by Manish Swarup/AP Photo)

Transgender woman Angeles Rojas enters a room at Banco Nación where she works in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, November 5, 2020. Rojas, 23, joined the most important public bank in Argentina this year as part of the trans labor quota that is part of the public policies in favor of the LGBT community that the South American country has implemented in the last decade. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

A helicopter flies close to a volcanic eruption which has begun in Fagradalsfjall near the capital Reykjavik on March 20, 2021 in Fagradalsfjall, Iceland. On Friday the Icelandic meteorological office announced a volcano, referring to a mountain located south-west of the Capital Reykjavik has erupted after thousands of small earthquakes in the area over the recent weeks. A no-fly zone has been established in the area. (Photo by Vilhelm Gunnarsson/Getty Images)