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The Wildlife Conservation Society Canada is calling on people who consider themselves a shutterbug – or may have seen one.
The conservation organization has opened its fourth annual KBA Photo Contest.
The contest provides an opportunity for photographers of all skill levels to showcase their best shots of species and ecosystems from Key Biodiversity Areas.
These areas, referred to as KBAs, are designated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and support rare and threatened species.
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Peter Soroye, the assessment and outreach coordinator at WCS Canada, said KBAs include iconic national parks, historic sites, city parks and “weird places that a lot of people live by or visit a lot, and don’t quite realize the significance of them.”
“The photo contest is a way to raise awareness about some of these really exceptional places, and also capture some of the beauty of these places from the eyes of people visiting them,” said Soroye.
A newer addition to the list of KBAs is Wood Buffalo National Park, Soroye said, which received its designation in the past two months.
The park earned this title in part because it is the only location where whooping cranes breed and the only place in Canada where bison have continuously lived, Soroye said.
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“Everywhere else in Canada, bison have been extirpated and then reintroduced, but in Wood Buffalo, this is an area of their native range that they’ve maintained continuously over the last hundreds of years,” said Soroye.
Other KBAs in the Northwest Territories include parts of the Nahanni National Park Reserve and coastal areas near the Beaufort Sea.
To enter the contest, participants can submit photos taken within KBAs or candidate KBAs, or of a KBA species.
For the first time this year, the photo contest has a category for Indigenous storytellers.
In past years, Soroye said, he’s seen a “wealth of really beautiful submissions” from Indigenous people across Canada.
“This category – the Indigenous Storytellers category – is a chance for us to really centre those creators,” said Soroye.
Other categories include fauna, flora and fungi, landscapes and ecosystems, and people and conservation.
“It’s really fun to see on social media as people re-share the contest and and discover new KBAs, or discover the significance of sites near them that maybe they’ve visited their whole lives and now are realizing they’re significant for some weird slug or snail or lichen,” said Soroye.
The submission period closes on October 15 and the winners will be announced on November 25.
The grand prize winner will be awarded $600. The first place winners in each category will receive a $250 prize.
