Tim Flach sees his Hasselblad H4D-60 camera as a means to its end: capturing the character and emotions of an animal. Until now his interest has been in the way humans shape animals, but in his new book, Endangered, he poses the question of what these animals, and their potential disappearance, mean to us.

Twenty months of shooting and six months of assembling has resulted in a collection of more than 180 pictures. “In some cases we put up a black background in a zoo or a natural reserve, in others it meant being underwater with hippos or great white sharks.”

On his homepage, Flach namechecks his photographic idols like Irving Penn or Guy Bourdin but also Picasso. Understanding the picture and its protagonists seem more important to him than the technical circumstances that led to the picture.

The photographs cover diverse themes around the topic of threatened ecosystems and species. Among the latter are well-known ones like the extinct passenger pigeon, rediscovered species like the Lord Howe Island stick insect, or the last of their kind, like the northern white rhinoceros.

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“I wanted an array of endangered species which represented various aspects, some better and some lesser known,” Flach says. “I went to pursue the rare Saiga antelope and visited their habitat by the Caspian Sea during the summer, waiting in a hideout close to where they go to drink. But then I realised the weather conditions were so extreme that the heat had distorted the pictures. So we went back in the winter when it was -30C and I was lying down on the ground in camouflage for three days using the longest possible lens, and finally got the shot.”

Saiga antelopes cannot be maintained in zoos because their bones are so light that they would crash in a transport container. Locals persecute them for their horns and hunt them down on mopeds. “Often the less exciting images have the most interesting backstories.”

By including pictures of landscapes, Flach also tries to paint the whole picture of how we deal with nature: “I see linking the animals back to their habitat as the most important objective. The habitat is something that is essential to the conservation of endangered animals.

“The most important message is that it’s not simply images of animals but that every aspect of our being is influenced by the natural world around us. With over seven hours a day that we spend on the internet, it becomes clear that we don’t have the same sensibilities that our predecessors had to their environment. I want to point to the ecological drivers of humanity through portrayals of animals and I chose some candidates to demonstrate that.

“Insects might not interest everyone but they are essential for sustaining life. As soon as their numbers are diminishing, many things are not controlled anymore.”

As we don’t know when the tipping points of a system could occur, we need to appreciate things before they are gone, he says. “For our own wellbeing we have to reconnect with the wild.”

Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus.

IUCN Red List status: Not evaluated.

The monarch butterfly has been a focus of entomologists since the 1970s. A decade later, the IUCN marked the monarch migration as a threatened phenomenon, realising that fewer and fewer of these butterflies seemed to make their way to their winter quarters in California and Michoacán, Mexico. Figures show a 74% decline between 1997 and 2016 and have led to conservation measures, like the protection of Mexican forests under the North American Monarch Conservation Plan.

White-bellied pangolin, Phataginus tricuspis.

IUCN Red List status: Vulnerable.

Each year, female Pangolins give birth to only one baby and breed very slowly due to their solitary nature. The pangolin is threatened all over the world, from Africans eating them as bushmeat to their use in China and Vietnam where they are turned into handbags or medicine. Their pulverised scales are said to cure asthma, nosebleeds, or cancer. In 2000, a zero-export quota on wild-caught Asian pangolins was introduced and in 2014 the IUCN status of all eight species were listed as “threatened with extinction”.

Bengal tiger, Panthera tigris.

IUCN Red List status: Endangered.

The number of Bengal tigers decreases with the loss of their habitat. The cultural history of India also contributes to the sinking numbers – for example, the tradition of eating tiger liver for courage. The situation worsened after the South China subspecies disappeared by 1985, with Chinese poachers turning to the Bengal tiger. Even though China has banned the use of tiger bone, a black market persists. Today, more than 50 tiger reserves exist in India, providing a home for the remaining 2,500 individuals.

Social life in a coral broadly resembles a utopian commune

Coral near Heron Island, Queensland, Australia. Protruding here and there among these plates are other corals, including Pocillopora (the fat green fingers, upper right) and Acropora (branching corals, bottom left and top).

By day, Montipora corals survive through a symbiosis with an algae, which produce energy through photosynthesis. At night, they fan out and trap surrounding zooplankton with their tiny polyps. Social life in a coral therefore broadly resembles a utopian commune with the added benefit of an “intranet”. The polyps communicate and even share food and algae.

Polar bear, Ursus maritimus.

IUCN Red List status: Vulnerable

Until 1973, when strict controls were introduced, polar bears mainly suffered from hunting. Today, vanishing ice cover poses a threat to all species in the Arctic food chain, from polar bears to seal, down to plankton, which is reduced due to lower oxygen content in warmer water. Seals, the bear’s prey, need the ice cover for protection and pupping. Without them, polar bears are forced to swim further and further through ice-free seas to find their essential food source. To avoid over-exhaustion and save energy, this individual hunched down in a snow pit during fierce weather conditions.

Common hippopotamus, Hippopotamus amphibius.

IUCN Red List status: Vulnerable

In 2003, surveys showed that the number of hippos had dropped by 95% during eight years of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hippos are hunted for bushmeat but have become the focus of poachers interested in their ivory canines following the 1989 ban on trading elephant ivory. International trade out of several African countries is restricted, but the law is not yet enforced on the ground. Today, African elephants outnumber hippos four to one.

The tadpoles wriggle free of the jelly and drop into the water, or are flushed in by raindrops

Frog eggs, Agalychnis annae.

IUCN Red List status: Endangered

During the rainy season, yellow-eyed tree frogs lay their eggs over still water. After mating, the female deposits a batch of jelly-coated eggs on a leaf or branch. This keeps them safe from fish and other aquatic predators. A week later they hatch and the tadpoles wriggle free of the jelly, drop into the water, or are flushed in by raindrops.

Ploughshare tortoise, Astrochelys yniphora.

IUCN Red List status: Critically endangered

An adult ploughshare tortoise, mainly found in Asia, is worth tens of thousands of dollars on the black market. Even though live trade is banned, it has risen in recent years and incidents of tortoises stuffed into suitcases have often been reported. Hidden among items such as socks, nappies or plastic bags, the animals were intercepted in Bangkok or Mumbai and returned to Madagascar. But often they die from the stress on the journey. Captive-breeding stations have been set up in Madagascar and more than 600 individuals have been raised. As the tortoises were often stolen by smugglers, the captives now receive a painless engraving on their shells. Richard Lewis of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust said they hate to do it, “but we believe this will be a genuine deterrent”.

Military macaw, Ara militaris.

IUCN Red List status: Vulnerable

Military macaws are caught for the pet trade and endangered through the loss of their habitat. In 2007, Defenders of Wildlife estimated that each year 78,500 birds were caught in Mexico, and a quarter of their original habitat has been cleared for logging and agriculture. Today, fewer than 10,000 military macaws are spread over an increasingly patchy area. In 2008, Mexico issued an export ban on its 22 parrot species but illegal trade – much of it on the local market – continues.



White-backed African vulture, Gyps africanus.

IUCN Red List status: Critically endangered

It takes one hour for a flock of vultures to strip a cow carcass to its bones. Like this, they fulfill a useful role in the ecosystem. In parts of India, Nepal, Cambodia, Spain and southern Africa, approved carcasses of cattle and pigs are dumped, creating so-called “vulture restaurants”. It assures a safe food source for the critically endangered birds but also brings revenues in local tourism. Abattoir legislation in most parts of Europe is stricter, but there are now moves to relax the laws and thereby give back some of the bird’s traditional food sources.