Henley Spiers
Shearwater’s Dilemma
Wedge-tailed shearwater in a school of lanternfish, Costa Rica, 2023
Category - Ocean
Off the Eastern Pacific coast, a wedge-tailed shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) plunges into a football-pitch-sized school of lanternfish, struggling to single out a target. The fish move as one, their schooling defence working perfectly. The bird surfaced without catching anything and circled back for another dive. Shearwaters are exquisitely adapted for life at sea and depend on healthy fish stocks. This encounter captures a rarely witnessed moment of open-ocean abundance, and one of the most extraordinary days of my career as an underwater photographer. Lanternfish are thought to be the most numerous vertebrates on Earth, accounting for up to 65% of deep-sea fish biomass. They form a critical link in the ocean food web, sustaining predators from seabirds and dolphins to tuna and devil rays. The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), which came into force at the beginning of 2026, is the first international legal framework to protect scenes like this across the roughly half of our planet that lies beyond national waters.
CATEGORY WINNER
28 mm f/3.5-4.5 Lens - 1/500 sec at f/6.3 ISO 1000