Overview
- Nature announced on Wednesday that Gunnar Hartmann’s image of northern bald ibises guided by the Waldrappteam is the overall winner of its 2026 Scientist at Work photo competition.
- Hartmann’s shot shows foster carer Helena Wehner calling to hand‑raised ibises from an ultralight during a 2,800‑kilometre, 50‑day reintroduction migration that began as a Waldrappteam project in 2004.
- The other four winning images document active research: KAUST scientists installing coral incubation chambers in the Red Sea, a researcher sampling microbes from a whale shark at Ningaloo Reef, a team collecting water and eDNA from toxic algal blooms on Dog Lake, and a Notre Dame lab testing nitisinone on mosquitoes.
- More than 220 entries were submitted to the competition and each winner will receive a £500 cash prize plus publication in Nature.
- Editors say the winning portfolio uses striking imagery to bring public focus to ongoing conservation, marine‑climate studies and applied lab work, which could raise awareness and support for those projects on local and global levels.