Oceanographic Magazine holds a contest every year called the Ocean Photography Awards, to honor the photos and photographers who have contributed to warning of man-made disasters on the ocean floor.
And in the Ocean Photography Awards 2020, the photos that made the final selection really make us ponder. As expected, the winning photo will be announced on November 19.
Every year, an estimated 640,000 tons of used fishing nets fall into the ocean. These are called ghost nets. In the photo is such a net, covering the sinking island of Kimud Shoal off the coast of the Philippines. The net was then removed by the Malapascua divers (Photographer: Henley Spiers)
A photo by photographer Joe Daniels of a micro white shark in the Red Sea (Egypt) caught in a diver’s pressurized line. The rope tightened on the neck of the fish, cut deep into the flesh, causing serious damage to the gills.
Blue shark hit up to 2 fishing rods in his mouth, taken by photographer Ron Watkins off Rhode Island (USA).
An arctic white bear observes the waters for prey in the north of the Svalbard Islands (Norway). The melting of ice in recent decades has made white bear feeding much more difficult (Image: Florian Ledoux).
Sharks are tied in a net on an illegal fishing boat in Liberia (Image: Melissa Romao).
Another net covers a coral reef on Malapascua Island (Philippines). The fish can be seen swimming there, and it is more likely that they will hardly escape (Image: Henley Spiers).
Tuna herd in North Sulawesi (Indonesia) conceded, on the way to the fishing boat (Photo: Shane Gross).
Soul snails are shellless animals, so they will have to “borrow” shells of other species as shelter. But now, they also borrow plastic from humans as shelter. Photo by photographer Matt Sharp taken in Maldives.
A poor sperm whale washed ashore at Razende Bol (Netherlands). This is originally a place with quite a few whales (Image: Jeroen Hoekendijk).
The hippocampus congregates on a small patch of land northeast of Svalbard, Norway (Photo: Florian Ledoux).
This is the world’s largest territory of the royal cormorant, about 100km south of Puerto Madryn (Argentina). And there is something in the middle that should not appear: a plastic bottle (Image: Andrea Benvenutti)