Zoologist Bernie Peyton uses his exceptional talent with origami to raise awareness about wildlife preservation.

Peyton on his work:

“I write a lot of boring [academic] articles nobody reads, but conservation also has to appeal to the emotional side,” Peyton told Wired. “That’s why I do art.”

He chose origami because its fragility complements “the ephemeral nature of our world,” he said. Plus, he uses his experience as a field biologist to inform how he molds paper into cacti, bears, kangaroo rats, snakes and polar bears, all of which he’s spent considerable time with.

“I don’t fold anything I don’t have a personal experience with,” he said.

Paul Nicklen won this year’s Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year for his incredible image of emperor penguins swimming in the frozen area of the Ross Sea, Antarctica (top). The other award-winning shots are pretty amazing too and you can see more of them on the contest site.

Still life in oil, a photo of pelicans waiting to be cleaned after the Gulf oil spill taken by Daniel Beltrá (top), was the overall winner of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year last year. As you can see, the runners-up were pretty good too. This year’s winners will be announced next month, but in the meantime you can see some of the commended images that are in contention here.

Extinct Birds by Brian R. Williams shows birds in the style of dress in fashion the year they went extinct.

Beautiful wildlife photography from Tanzania and Botswana by Justin Carrasquillo.

Elegy by Deborah Samuel

From an interview with Samuel:

Two years ago the Gulf Oil spill happened and I was mesmerized with the disaster…watching the counter on the bottom left of the screen forecast how many gallons of oil were being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. It was horrifying to think that they could not stop this. Then the photos of the oil-covered birds started to be broad-casted. I wanted to go to Louisiana to photograph the oil covered birds as their plight was the iconic face of this disaster, but was unable to get access to photograph these birds due to regulations from the government and BP. I thought if I cannot go to the birds then I will bring the birds to me. Because of the nature of this disaster I made the leap to skeletons; they represent the final chapter if we do not reconsider what we are doing to the planet and to life forms that share the planet with us.

Some wonderful wildlife illustration from Jonathan Woodward.

Return to the Wild by Kai and Sunny

From the project Until the Kingdom Comes by Simen Johan

About the project:

In his work, Johan creates tension and blurs the boundaries between opposing forces, such as the familiar and the otherworldly, the natural and the artificial, the serene and the eerie. In one photograph, two black-beaked flamingos intertwine in an embrace that seems at once affectionate and restricting. In another, two hapless caribou lie glazed with ice, frozen in a scene that is both tranquil and brutal. Exploring the paradoxical nature of existence, the artist situates his images between an ideal paradise and a reality complicated by desires, fears and darker instincts.

While some photographs in the series reference Biblical motifs, Johan says that his choice of title, Until the Kingdom Comes, “refers less to religious or natural kingdoms and more to the human fantasy that one day, in some way, life will come to a blissful resolution. …In a reality where understanding is not finite and in all probability never will be, I depict ‘living’ as an emotion-fueled experience, engulfed in uncertainty, desire and illusion.”

From a terrific photo gallery put together for La Lettre de la Photographie

Not all photojournalistic story has to be about war and destruction. Nor does it has to show decay, decadence and desolation. Some can be about life and it’s celebration, about growth and awakening, about rebirth and fulfilled promises.

Photographers Yva Momatiuk and John Eastcott covered one the most surprising ecological events of the last decade. After years of decline and predicted endangerment, the wild salmon of Canada made a completely unsuspected mass return in late 2010. After dropping to their lowest levels on 2009, estimated a 1.5 million individuals, the sockeye salmon made a return to their breading grounds in numbers not seen in more than a century. At 35 million, their numbers not only stupefied observers and researchers, but also completely caught off guard the fishing community. Expected to continue to decline due to pollution, global warming, overfishing, viruses, food shortage, the salmons instead jumped to becoming the largest migration of any aquatic vertebrae on earth.

Photographer Ian Shive recently won the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club and is currently working on a long-term project to document the world’s most endangered ecosystems. He has also just begun working with the U.S. Department of Interior to document the nation’s wildlife refuges. 

Selections from the Guardian photo gallery:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 highly commended images – in pictures. A selection of the highly commended images that will feature in the WPY exhibition at the Natural History Museum opening on 21 October 2011 before embarking on a national and international tour