10 Favorite Wildlife Photos from 2024

This is a male forest elephant in the Republic of Congo that's quite interested in humans.

Pablo, as researchers call him, regularly roams around Mondika, a gorilla research and habituation site in the heart of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park. He comes to check out the clothes drying along the river or just to observe the people.

On the day this photo was taken, Pablo was attracted to the smell of cooking and wandered under a bush, wading along the banks of the river, which reflected the light of the falling sun onto him.

This shot of Pablo is one of our favorites of wildlife shared in the past year.

Together, these images span our five wildlife parks in New York City and some of the 50-plus countries where we work around the world.

Check out all 10.

LISTEN to our 5 most popular podcast episodes of the year

The people have spoken. You love big cats. Jaguars and tigers were both featured among the year's most downloaded episodes of WCS Wild Audio (along with conserving catfish in the Amazon, climate change, and addressing plastic pollution).

All of our podcast episodes come in under 15 minutes.

Check them out and don't forget to subscribe at Apple or wherever you get your podcasts to keep up with the latest.

READ good news for wildlife to end 2024

A win for wildlife and people: With bipartisan support, Congress passed the U.S. Foundation for International Conservation Act (USFICA) last week. The groundbreaking bill will address ecological degradation that destabilizes and drives conflict around the world.

To help, USFICA will create a public-private partnership, which means government funds will leverage private support making those public dollars go much farther. And those monies will go directly to protected areas and parks around the world to help provide resources on the ground.

“It was a great bipartisan win for wildlife conservation in Washington this week," said John Calvelli , WCS Executive Vice President for Public Affairs.

Thank you for all you did for the planet in 2024. Drop a comment and let us know what you'd like to hear about in our 2025 newsletters.