Pictured: Winning entries for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026

An emotional scene of an elephant carrying a deceased calf has earned Italian photographer Federico Veronesi the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026.

While tracking elephants in Namibia's Huab River Valley, Veronesi spotted an unusual trail of drag marks across the sand of a dry riverbed.

Following the tracks, he came across a female elephant carrying a dead calf, its leg wedged between her tusk and trunk.

Initially, Veronesi assumed the elephant was the calf's mother. But after sharing his photographs with an elephant research project working in the area, he learned that this wasn't certain.

Researchers recognised the elephant as a female who had lost a calf several years earlier and said she had previously picked up dead calves belonging to other females.

For Veronesi, the encounter was deeply significant. "Of all the 20 years I've done photographing animals, this is the most heart-wrecking and fascinating and dramatic," he said, describing it as "revealing of the depth and complexity of the emotions, the feelings of the animals."

He hopes the image will encourage people to look beyond animals' physical appearance and recognise them as individuals with their own relationships, memories and emotions. "It's a small window that opens just a crack into the complexity of their world," he said.

The competition's annual exhibition, external opens at the Natural History Museum on Friday 16 October 2026. Keep scrolling to see more award-winning images.