Luca Eberle
Predator’s Gaze
Female puma peers through the forest canopy, Costa Rica, 2023
Category - Forests
While resting, a female puma (Puma concolor) watches the movements of spider monkeys in the forest canopy of Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. In these rainforests, pumas’ diets includes a wide range of animals from the forest understory and, on occasion, primates, captured through acrobatic leaps and agile tree climbing. Although the puma is in the Least Concern category on the global IUCN Red List, Central American populations, including those in Costa Rica, face increasing pressure from habitat loss and fragmentation, declining prey, and conflict with human activity. On the Osa Peninsula, pumas sometimes attack livestock, leading to tensions with ranchers and, in some cases, retaliatory killings.
RUNNER-UP
600 mm f/4.5-6.3 Lens - 1/100 sec at f/6.3 ISO 1600