Shane Gross - Royal-BC-Museum

Taking a Deep Dive Into Marine Conservation, Canadian Shane Gross Wins the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award

by Laura Goldstein

Photography: Shane Gross

 

Floating on the water, delicate water lilies are a bucolic foil for their prolific thick tentacled roots anchored deep into the mud below. They provide a tangled refuge for marine life beneath the surface.  Amid this forest of swaying underwater foliage, swarms of western toad tadpoles are fighting for their very existence as they migrate to their feeding grounds. Snorkelling for hours into the mesmerizing fray in a lake near Campbell River on Vancouver Island, Canada, professional marine conservation photojournalist, Shane Gross waited patiently for the silt- induced visibility to clear. For his photograph of teeming tadpoles entitled ‘The Swarm of Life’, he was awarded Adult Grand Title Winner 2024 in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year from London, England’s Natural History Museum. In celebration of the Museum’s 60th Anniversary, their captivating travelling Exhibition of 100 wildlife photographs by Canadian and international photographers, arrives at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria from February 14 to April 27, 2025.

 

Born in land-locked Regina, Shane has always had a love affair with the ocean and eventually lived in the Bahamas for ten years. “I have a strong connection to the Bahamas as that was my first time in the ocean as a kid on vacation with my family when I was four -years -old. I later got certified for scuba diving there at fifteen. And, it’s a shark sanctuary that’s been protected since 2011,” he explains. After watching the film Jaws countless times, “I wanted to be just like the oceanographer, Richard Dreyfuss’ character, Matt Hooper!” Shane confides. Now based in Nanaimo, his obsession and fascination with sharks has been a life-long pursuit as a photojournalist.

 

Shane has circled the globe photographing the most exotic of underwater creatures. Closer to home, that included photographing a 13-foot great white shark from an underwater cage off the coast of Nova Scotia in 2023. With that in mind, it may seem somewhat ironic winning the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award for the more tame image of tadpoles, compared to his many shark, rays and other deep sea images that he submitted to the judging panel.

 

“Yes, it was a bit surprising,” he laughs, “but in a way fitting because there is a push to recognize 

under-recognized and under-appreciated species and habitats. So how it works is there are 16 categories and we are allowed to submit 25 for contention. A record-breaking 59,228 photographs from 117 countries were submitted. Out of those, I won the Wetlands category. Then from those final images from 16 categories, the overall winner is selected. What’s interesting is that the Wetlands category is fairly new and it was created specifically to bring attention to those species because they are so underrepresented.”

 

If you’re a fan of Sir David Attenborough’s engrossing wildlife and Planet Earth series, you’ll be delighted to learn that he was the presenter at the very first Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 1965. For the 60th Anniversary 2024 competition, a panel of well-known international wildlife conservationists and photographers was chaired by Kathy Moran (US), a former Deputy Director of Photography for National Geographic. Of Shane’s winning photograph she said : “The judges were captivated by the mix of light, energy, and connectivity between the environment and the tadpoles."

 

Shane was flown to London for the ceremony and presented on stage with a one-of-a-kind commissioned sculpture by British artist, Nick Mackman. To depict  the western toad tadpoles dodging between ribbons of water lily roots, she cut sheets of copper depicting the plant life and sculpted individual tadpoles that were Raku fired to a lustrous blue.

 

“A highlight of the trip was visiting 10 Downing Street for afternoon tea,” Shane reminisces. “Fifty of us attended and there was incredible security. Unfortunately, neither the Prime Minister nor King Charles, a wildlife advocate, could attend.”

 

The late oceanographer, Jacques-Yves Cousteau said: “You protect the things that you love.”

 

That mantra has always influenced Shane’s work. His stunning coffee table book, Bahamas Underwater with a forward by the esteemed oceanographer and environmentalist, Jean-Michel Cousteau is the culmination of thousands of hours capturing the underwater beauty of the Bahamas. “I was shocked to learn that 80% of children there don’t know how to swim! I’m honoured to collaborate with Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) to make this book available in virtually every school in the Bahamas. Sales from this book go directly to BREEF to fund in-water experiences for Bahamian youth to see this beauty for themselves.”

 

Shane will attend and can sign copies of the Exhibition Catalogue at the opening of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition on February 14, 2025 at the Royal BC Museum.