UPY 2025

UPY  Save our Seas Foundation Marine Conservation - Highly Commended
'Supremacy'
David Serradell

I took this image while on a surftrip on the east coast of Sri Lanka. A series of sharks were laying dead on the ground with marks on their mouths from hooks, most likely from longlines set miles away offshore. Looking at the fisherman standing behind his most recent catch I thought about how little money he was just going to get from that day, comparing it to how much Asian markets would get when reselling the future dried fins from these sharks. I cannot blame the fisherman, this is the only thing they have been doing for their entire life with the only goal of bringing food to the family table. It is easy to blame, difficult to listen to the whole story. Supremacy shows the power of humans to, in approx 50 years, bring sharks to the brink of extinction, a group that has survived 5 mass extinctions

Judge's comment: An emotional picture showing these magnificent ocean animals dead and blooded, and the complexity of social factors behind most conservation issues.
Alex Mustard