A handsome male lion, carrying his dinner in his mouth, stares as if challenging someone to try and take it from him. This lion is one of the pride that was rescued from starvation and neglect in Romania, and brought to Yorkshire Wildlife Park in a rescue mission funded by News Of The World newspaper.
There are fewer than 500 Amur tigers left in the world, and sadly many of them are living in captivity in a bid to prevent extinction through carefully run conservation programmes. As this stunning male tiger stared at me, I wondered what he was thinking, does he dream of the wild or is he happy where he is?
This beautiful female tiger was rolling on her back, calling to the males nearby as she tried to attract a mate. Unfortunately for her, tiger conservation and breeding is an exact science, to enable tiger cubs to be born that are genetically strong enough to survive in the wild, so her calls were not fulfilled. She did, however, give me a piercing gaze to enable me to take this picture of her.
I went to the deer park in the hopes of catching a nice sunset; the sky turned out to be lacklustre but these two stags made up for it by having a rut. I think they missed the memo that rutting season was two months ago! The original image has had a texture applied to give it a more painterly feel.
