Student’s fox picture wins photography prize

A picture of a red fox on the hunt in the Canadian Arctic has secured a national photography award for a PhD student at the University.

Sandra Angers-Blondin, who is studying in the School of GeoSciences, was the student winner in the Dynamic Ecosystems category of the British Ecological Society’s annual photography competition.

Arctic shots

The winning image was taken on the island of Qikiqtaruk in the Arctic Ocean, which lies a few miles off the coast of Yukon in northern Canada.

It is part of a series of photographs taken by Angers-Blondin for a bursary project to promote environmental awareness.

The Environmental Awareness Bursary is funded by The Royal Photographic Society and The Photographic Angle.

Doctoral studies

Sandra is part of Team Shrub, which carries out research to understand how climate change influences tundra ecosystems and biodiversity.

The team’s work on Qikiqtaruk was funded by the UK & Canada Arctic Partnership Bursaries Programme and the Walters Kundert Fellowship from the Royal Geographical Society.

I love communicating science in various ways, especially through photography, a hobby of mine for several years. I am therefore very happy to be recognised by the British Ecological Society. I took the photo during an expedition to my favourite PhD site, Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island in the Canadian Arctic, where I study vegetation responses to climate change. This fox was a local celebrity in camp, and I spent many evenings watching it hunt and roam around.

Related links

Study GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh

British Ecological Society photography competition

_{Image credit: Sandra Angers-Blondin / British Ecological Society}