20 Top Photos from the 2017 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Dec 08, 2017

Michael Zhang

Need a laugh? The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards has announced its finalists for 2017. The contest injects humor into the world of wildlife photography by searching for the funniest photos of animals captured around the world.

In addition to providing smiles and laughs, the contest also aims to raise awareness for wildlife conservation efforts. This year, the competition received over 3,500 entries from photographers in 86 countries.

“The images are shortlisted by how funny they are and the technical quality of their photograph,” says contest co-founder and co-judge Paul Joynson-Hicks, “subsequently the [finalists] are judged purely on their humour and content.”

Here’s a selection of 20 of the finalist photos from this year’s contest:

**Three Tanors** by Roie Galitz. Marvelous musical act by three joyful elephant seals in South Georgia Island.

**MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM** by Barb D’Arpino. Female Burrowing Owl looking exhausted as four of her owlets vie for her attention.

**Help !!!** by Tibor Kercz. Little owl nestlings.

**The laughing dormouse** by Andrea Zampatti. A baby dormouse seem laughing on a yarrow flower.

**Outsourcing seatbelt checks** by Graeme Guy. Masai Mara airstrip with a plane landing ‘below’ giraffe height.

**Duck Speed!** by John Threlfall. Duck in front of plane trail.

**WTF?** by George Cathcart. Young elephant seal reacts to his friend’s revelation that he voted for Brexit.

**Lord of the jungle** by Gill Merritt. For those old enough to remember the Carry On films, this reminded of matron!

**Animal encounters** by Jean-Jacques Alcalay. Blue wildebeest standing on a mound.

**Grimace** by Josef Friedhuber. Mountains Gorilla is making grimaces after he came out of the bush after the rain.

**Burrowing Owlet embarrassed by kissing behind him!** by Melissa Usrey. GET a ROOM!

**Slap** by Troy Mayne. A Green Turtle slapping a Napoleon Maori Wrasse.

**Kung fu training (Australian style)** by Andrey Giljov. Wild red kangaroos are most active in the early morning. And the morning is the best time for the martial art training! Of course, this was not a training kangaroo male, but a funny posture during scratching. At least kangaroos want us to think so…

**Let Me Clear My Vision** by Arkaprava Ghosh. A red Ghost crab (Ocypodinae sp.) seen adjusting and cleaning one of its eyes at the Frazergunj beach in West Bengal, India.

**Caught in the Act** by Bence Mate. The bears tried to hide in the bush for a quick tryst, but they were surely caught in the act.

**Laughing seal** by Brian Valente. A seal looks to be getting a good laugh about something.

**Must Have Three-putted…** by Douglas Croft. Golf is a frustrating game and if you’ve ever picked up a golf club, you’ve wanted to do this.

**Monkey Escape** by Katy Laveck Foster. Celebes Macaques are a critically endangered primate found only on the northern region of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Tangkoko Nature Reserve is an important habitat for this species and others. These two monkeys broke away from their group to ‘test drive’ a motorbike parked near the entrance to the reserve.

**Gnu’s Flash** by Paulette Struckman. Gnu and shadow at the watering hole at the hide in Mkhuze park.

**Wild about laughing** by Tina Stehr. Frank, always laughing at his own jokes…

Winners of this year’s contest will be announced on December 14th, 2017. In addition to the contest, CWPA has just launched two new photo books: the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards and Wild and Crazy: Photos from the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, available both in the US and UK.

Want to see more? You can find the 13 winning photos from the 2015 edition of the contest here.

Image credits: All photos copyright their respective photographers and courtesy The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards