The Museum is host to the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards contest, which is open and accepting entries till March 5, 2010. If you’re a photographer of any age you can enter online.

If you enjoy looking at superb photographs of animals, there’s an online gallery of the 2009 award winners.  You can even vote for your personal favorite photograph.

The website also has a section on the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife, which commemorates Gerald Durrell’s work with endangered species and his long-standing involvement with the photography competition.  The animal(s) in the photograph must be from the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as critically endangered or endangered, vulnerable or near threatened at an international or national level.

Thanks to Veolia for their role in sponsoring the competition.

The Award exhibit I attended showed a film about the patience and skill that photographers need to capture an image that wins an award.  Some say that luck plays a role.  The resulting images are well worth visiting, either online or in person.  Enjoy them!

(Note: The photographs used with this posting are not known to be from any award competition).