Grand Title Winner

The winners of the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition have been announced tonight at an awards ceremony held at London’s Natural History Museum.

Photojournalist Brent Stirton has won the prestigious Grand Title Winner for the above image "Memorial to a species", which frames a recently shot and de-horned black rhino in South Africa’s Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Reserve. Once the most numerous rhino species, black rhinos are now critically endangered due to poaching and the illegal international trade in rhino horn, one of the world’s most corrupt illegal wildlife networks. For the photographer, the crime scene was one of more than 30 he visited in the course of covering this tragic story.

Competition judge Roz Kidman Cox says: "To make such a tragic scene almost majestic in its sculptural power deserves the highest award. There is rawness, but there is also great poignancy and therefore dignity in the fallen giant. It’s also symbolic of one of the most wasteful, cruel and unnecessary environmental crimes, one that needs to provoke the greatest public outcry."

National History Museum Director, Sir Michael Dixon added: "This shocking picture of an animal butchered for its horns is a call to action for us all."

Beating almost 50,000 entries from 92 countries, Brent’s image will be on show with 99 other images at the Natural History Museum on October 20, 2017.

Read on to see the rest of this year's winners...