Polar bear sleeping on tiny iceberg drifting in Arctic sea captured in heartbreaking photo

A heart-wrenching image catches a young polar bear snoozing on the melting scraps of a small, wandering iceberg.

British amateur professional photographer Nima Sarikhani caught the scene off the Norwegian island chain of Svalbard, which sits deep inside the Arctic Circle, around 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the North Pole. The image was crowned the winner of this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award

After 3 days of frantically looking for polar bears (Ursus maritimusthrough thick fog, the exploration vessel that Sarikhani was on altered course and cruised southeast towards some sea ice. There, the team identified 2 polar bears– a more youthful and an older male. Right before midnight, as the ship hovered near to the bears, the more youthful one climbed up onto a little iceberg and took a bed with his paws before wandering off to sleep.

“This photo has actually stirred strong feelings in much of those who have actually seen it,” Sarikhani stated in a declaration shown Live Science.

Members of the general public voted “Ice Bed” as the competitors winner from a shortlist of 25 images curated by a panel of judges and the Natural History Museum in London.

“Nima’s heartbreaking and poignant image permits us to see the charm and fragility of our world,” Douglas Gurrdirector of the Natural History Museum, stated in the declaration. “His thought-provoking image is a plain pointer of the important bond in between an animal and its environment and functions as a graph of the destructive effects of environment warming and environment loss.”

Related: ‘This is not likely to be a separated occasion’: 1st polar bear death from bird influenza spells difficulty for types

Environment modification is thought about the most significant danger to the survival of polar bears in the wild, as increasing temperature levels disappear the sea ice these animals depend upon. An approximated 26,000 polar bears stay in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Speciesand they are thought about susceptible to termination.

“Whilst environment modification is the most significant difficulty we deal with, I hope that this picture likewise motivates hope,” Sarikhani stated. “There is still time to repair the mess we have actually triggered.”

The winning photo will be shown together with 4 other “extremely applauded” images both online and in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit at the Natural History Museum up until June 30. The shortlisted photos can be seen listed below.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is established and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

Sascha is a U.K.-based student personnel author at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science interaction from Imperial College London. Her work has actually appeared in The Guardian and the health site Zoe. Composing, she delights in playing tennis, bread-making and searching pre-owned stores for concealed gems.