Photographer Loses Wildlife Photo Award Over Fake Anteater

Wildlife photography is challenging. Often, photographers have to wait for the proper conditions to photograph their subjects, and even when conditions are ideal, there’s a large chance that your subject’s inherent nature or the flash on your camera will cause them to flee before you can snap a decent photo. Wildlife photography takes practice, patience and a little bit of luck -- the latter of which is perhaps the most difficult to come by.

Unfortunately, sometimes photographers make their own luck, as is the case of Marcio Cabral.

Brazilian photographer Marcio Cabral won first place in the “Animals in Their Environment” category for London’s Natural History Museum’s 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. The photograph, entitled “The Night Raider,” shows a dreamy, ethereal, long-exposure scene of an anteater nibbling around an anthill in the twilight in Brazil’s Emas National Park.

After Cabral won the award, an anonymous tip surfaced with some information that led to an intense investigation into Cabral’s photographic methods. Cabral has since been disqualified for life from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest and stripped of his title.

Apparently, the informer noticed a stuffed anteater near the Portão do Bandeira gate of Ema’s National Park -- the same park where the winning photo was taken -- that looked remarkably similar to the anteater in Cabral’s winning photo.

Contest administrators enlisted the assistance of five scientists (including one anteater specialist) who worked independently to compare the anatomies of the taxidermy anteater and the one that was photographed. They found that based on the two animals’ fur tufts, fur patterns and posture, the animals’ physical appearances were far too similar to be two completely different animals.

Throughout this debacle, Cabral has maintained composure and insists on his innocence. Upon providing the RAW photo to the contest administrators, they found that the photo hadn’t been digitally altered in any way (aka, no Photoshop). There was also only one photo in Cabral’s roll of film that contained the anteater, which Cabral says was due to capturing a 30-second long still at ISO 5000. After capturing this exposure, Cabral told BBC that the animal scurried away, which is typical behavior for animals who are exposed to camera flashes.

Cabral is a pretty distinguished photographer; he has won previous wildlife photography awards and published photographs in numerous nature and travel magazines. He was also the first Brazilian photographer to create a spherical panorama photo completely underwater.

While Cabral is busy being banned from entering this contest ever again, people of the internet aren't taking these allegations too seriously.

This Photographer Lost His Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award After Stuffed Anteater Scandal

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