An image of the Spaniard Daniel Beltrá, who portrays agroup of pelicans covered in oilDue to the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it has obtained the first prize of the47th edition of the “Nature Wildlife Photographer of the Year” nature photography competition.
The photograph, titledStill life with oil, was taken by Beltrá in a temporary refuge for these birds in Fort Jackson, in the state of Louisiana (USA), whose symbol is the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis). It shows eight oil-drenched brown pelicans on a totally wrinkled and stained sheet that was once white. The chairman of the jury, Mark Carwardine, declared in a ceremony in London that the winning image was at the same time “a strong environmental proclamation, technically perfect and a work of art”.
The photographer, who works regularly for the Greenpeace organization, explains that when he took the photo the birds were “in the first phase of cleaning.” “They have already been sprayed with a light oil to dissolve the crude stuck to their feathers, which has made their usually pale heads orange and their brown and gray feathers mahogany,” he clarifies.
Brown pelicans were one of the main victims of the oil spill caused by theBP Deepwater Horizon rig explosionin US waters of the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. Some 6,000 birds died as a result of the oil slick, considered the worst ecological disaster in US history.
The rest of the awarded photographs in the “Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year” and some finalists of the main categories of the contest appear collected in our latest photo gallery.
