The Comedy Wildlife Awards Spring Back Into Action

To celebrate, here’s a look back at some of the best photos that came out of the last two years’ contest.

Some of 2016’s priceless photos include a grizzly bear being slapped in the face by its own salmon dinner, a buffalo looking less than pleased about the trickle of bird poo oozing down his forehead and a gorilla digging for gold up his nose.

Although the competition has provided laughs around the globe, its main purpose has always been to raise awareness of the importance of conserving our planet’s wildlife.

Wildlife photographer and co-founder Tom Sullam said: “Conservation was always at the heart of the competition, along with the fact that people seemed to enjoy images of animals doing entertaining things!

“But essentially living in a country that has some of the best wildlife in the world - Tanzania - and seeing how destructive human actions can be on this wildlife, made us want to do our little bit to help.

“Raising awareness through photography, getting people involved and using humour as a positive reinforcement of the good things, rather than focusing on the negative imagery that has historically been used - which does have its place in the fight to raise awareness.”

Entrants can submit up to three images into each category and up to two video clips of no more than 60 seconds into the video clip category.

Amongst this year’s judges are Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards co-founders Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE and Tom Sullam.

They will be joined by wildlife TV presenter Kate Humble, actor and comedian Hugh Dennis, wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas, wildlife expert Will Travers OBE and the Telegraph’s online travel editor Oliver Smith.

The 2016 competition winner was the, now famous, image of a perky hamster running home his cheeks stuffed full of his lunch, but one of the judges favourites was of a fox diving head first into a snowy bank.

Last year the competition saw 2200 entries from 1000 entrants in 75 countries.

Tom said: “We were blown away by the quality of imagery from 2016 and the competition has truly become one of excellent photography, along with comic timing by the animals. So for 2017, we naturally want to get even more humour from the photographers out there and maintain the incredible standard that has been set by all the successful entrants and also reach an even wider audience.

“We would love to showcase as many animals as possible to really demonstrate that animal conservation applies across the globe and to every animal species.”

The competition opens on June 2. To enter your hilarious photos visit: www.comedywildlifephoto.com