Photographer Spends 2 Years Documenting Animals That May Soon Become Extinct, The Pictures Are Heartbreaking

By Mayukh Saha / Truth Theory

We are all aware of the endangered animals all over the world. But somehow, they are distant – hidden from us. We are quite detached from them and it is only in the news or in some pictures that we get to encounter them. On top of that, we are confronted with the tragic news of their decreasing population due to habitat loss, hunting, smuggling, etc.

But unlike us, Tim Flach, a British photographer, has chosen to go into the wild to actually meet these wonderful animals. He wanted to document their lives and capture them in a frame – a photograph that could surpass time. After two years of roaming among these magnificent animals, he collected these photographs and combined them in a work called Endangered. It’s a beautiful collection which shows the most threatened animals on our planets – portraying the immeasurable loss which seems inevitable.

We are familiar with many species present in this collection, namely, the common snow leopard, cheetah, polar bear, etc. The animals which often come on the news. And then, there are the others which seem to be from some Harry Potter film – Philippine eagle, saiga, olm salamander. Flach just shows how diverse the wildlife is, and how challenging it is becoming for these diverse animals to survive. According to Flach, he is trying to bring a connection between humans and animals through these photos. That’s the reason why most of them are captured with their eyes pointing towards us. Eyes are the window to the soul of both humans and animals.

Now, we can see their eyes and watch the pain in them.

1. Saiga

2. Polar Bear

3. Philippine Eagle

4. Hyacinth Macaw

5. African Elephant

6. Iberian Lynx

7. Snow Leopard

8. Cheetah with cubs

9. Ring-Tailed Lemur

10. White Bellied Pangolin

11. Ploughshare Tortoise

12. Red Panda

13. Fireflies

14. Hippopotamus

15. Giant Panda

16. Red Crown Crane

17. Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey

18. Pied Tamarin

19. Sea Angels

20. Shoebill

21. Northern White Rhinoceros

22. Military Macaw

23. European Honey Bee

24. Egyptian Vulture

25. Scimitar Oryx’s

26. Western Lowland Gorillas

27. Scallop Hammerhead Aggregation

28. Blue Throated Macaw

29. Proboscis Monkey

30. Kaiser’s Newt

31. Indian Gharial

32. Yellow-Eyed Tree Frog

33. Arabian Oryx

34. Marine Iguana

35. Beluga Sturgeon

36. Lemur Leaf Frog

37. Yunan Snub Nose Monkey

38. Smooth Fronted Cayman

39. Yellow Eyed Tree Frog Eggs

40. Hooded Vulture

41. Olm Salamander

42. Siamese Crocodile

43. Partula Snails

Fascinated? We all are. It just makes us wonder how we can keep them alive so that we don’t just see them just like photographs, but know that there are out there somewhere still, wandering aimlessly. Freely.