Globe Climate: Wildlife photography of the year

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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
This week I learned that Canada’s dairy industry has dumped about 7 per cent of all milk it produced over a 10-year period, needlessly creating excess greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 350,000 passenger vehicles annually.
The authors of a recent study determined that more than 6.8 billion litres of raw milk – and possibly as much as 10 billion litres – disappeared from Canadian farms between 2012 and 2021. That’s at least $6.7-billion worth of milk gone, the result of an inefficient supply management system intended to control output and keep prices stable, according to the report. Something to think about over your next bowl of cereal.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
From sleeping macaques in Sri Lanka to curious seals in Antarctica, Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners found some captivating creatures in 2024
In nature photography, every image has a story behind it, and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has collected some of the world’s best every year since 1965. The organizer, London’s Natural History Museum, will display the winners starting Oct. 11, with a Canadian exhibition at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from Dec. 21 to May 5. Until then, here are some of the winners and Canadian entries that earned honorable mentions.
The Swarm of Life
Taken on Vancouver Island by Shane Gross • Winner, Adult Grand Title and Wetlands: The Bigger Picture category
A mass of western toad tadpoles rippled past as Shane Gross, a Canadian marine conservation photojournalist, snorkelled beneath the lily pads of B.C.’s Cedar Lake. Mr. Gross stayed immersed for hours to ensure that the silt and algae on the lake bottom would not be disturbed and cloud the shot.
A Diet of Deadly Plastic
Taken in Australia by Justin Gilligan • Winner, Oceans: The Bigger Picture
The 403 pieces of plastic in this mosaic came from a dead flesh-footed shearwater recovered by Adrift Lab, whose work the photographer has followed for several years. On Lord Howe Island, a breeding ground far off the east coast of Australia, the lab found most adult shearwaters and all fledglings had plastic in their systems, which can scar the linings of their digestive tracts.
The Demolition Squad
Taken in Hessen, Germany, by Ingo Arndt • Winner, Behaviour: Invertebrates
This blue ground beetle is already dead, and the red wood ants are doing an efficient job dismembering it. These ants largely feed on honeydew from aphids, but can kill larger insects to get much-needed protein. Lying down to capture the beetle’s fate left Mr. Arndt “full of ant,” he says.
A Tranquil Moment
Taken in Sri Lanka by Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod • Winner, Behaviour: Mammals
After a morning looking for birds and leopards in Wilpattu National Park, the photographer realized a troop of toque macaques was on the move above him. Between feeding sessions, this young one caught a nap, unaware of the telephoto lens capturing the moment. A macaque’s life is not always so tranquil: Increasingly, many are shot, snared and poisoned by farmers whose plantations encroach on the monkeys’ habitat.
When Worlds Collide
Taken in Toronto by Patricia Seaton Homonylo • Highly Commended, Photojournalism
These 3,900 birds, comprising 103 species, perished in window strikes across Greater Toronto in 2022. Members of the Fatal Light Awareness Program collected and arranged the bodies to illustrate the deadly toll of lit windows at night, which disorient birds and kill millions of them nationwide each year. Patricia Seaton Homonylo won 2024′s Bird Photographer of the Year award for this shot.
Kelly Cryderman: Alberta targets Ottawa’s oil-and-gas cap as Danielle Smith to face the heat in a leadership review
Editorial board: The free-market economics powering renewable energy
Volkswagen’s new, retro electric ID.Buzz is in a class of its own, but it isn’t cheap
The German maker saw the bus’s resurgence and now, after a 20-year absence in North America, there’s an entirely new, all-electric version that will be in dealerships by January. Volkswagen won’t sell millions of Buzzes, at least not at those prices, but it will surely be a popular vehicle. It’s called a halo model, something to aspire to that will be a status symbol and offers the best of what’s available in its market.
We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions.
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