Lynx playing with its prey wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — The image of an Iberian lynx playing with its prey has won the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award for 2026.

Standing on its hind legs with one paw flung out, the lynx seems both playful and predatory, batting around an unfortunate rodent as a precursor to killing and eating it.

More than 85,000 people voted in the annual competition organized by London’s Natural History Museum, choosing between 24 shortlisted photos. That shortlist was selected from 60,636 total entries, and is separate to the overall competition, whose winner was announced in October.

The winning shot in the People’s Choice competition was taken by Austrian photographer Josef Stefan, who captured the moment after spending three days camouflaged in a hide at Torre de Juan Abad in central Spain.

During that period, the lynx made “brief appearances from time to time,” Stefan told CNN. “On the second day, this special moment came completely unexpectedly, he suddenly appeared with a freshly caught rat in his mouth, lay down near me, and remained there attentively for a while.”

Shortly afterward, the lynx began to play with his prey. “He repeatedly tossed the rat into the air, skillfully caught it, and occupied himself with it for about 15 to 20 minutes. Finally, he lost interest, grabbed the rat, and disappeared behind a bush, where he ate it,” Stefan said.

“About 20 minutes later, he reappeared: calmly, almost proudly, he walked past my hide and finally disappeared into the adjacent bushland.”

Iberian lynxes, distinctive for their tufted ears and spotted red-brown fur, used to be one of the world’s most endangered mammals, after years of being hunted by humans, who mistakenly thought they killed livestock, and as their scrubland and woodland habitat declined. They were “practically impossible” to photograph then, Stefan recalled.

At one point in the early 2000s, there were about 100 left in Spain, according to Natalie Cooper, a researcher at the Natural History Museum. “Only 62 of these were mature individuals,” she added in a statement released by the Natural History Museum on Wednesday.

But intensive conservation efforts have boosted the species’ numbers, to about 648 mature individuals in 2022, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

While they remain elusive, their presence now feels “real again,” said Stefan. “With patience, knowledge of their habitats, and a bit of luck, these fascinating animals can once again be observed –– and sometimes even photographed.”

“The lynx is therefore not only a rare subject but also a powerful symbol of how effective nature conservation can be.”

Four other photos were named runners-up in the competition. They included images of a group of flamingoes in water, framed by power lines, with their pink color reflected by the sunset above; two bear cubs play-fighting even as a car bears down on them; a sika deer carrying the severed head of a rival still impaled on its antlers; and three polar bear cubs resting, curled up against their mother.

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