The cheek. The ruddy cheek. That’s all I can say. I was tucked up like a kipper by a tame wolf apparently passed off as a wild Iberian wolf by 2009 winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Jose Luis Rodriguez. His “iconic” shot of the wolf, now thought to be Ossian by experts, a tame wolf from a zoo outside Madrid, jumping a farm gate in Spain didn’t just have me fooled, it also had the judges fooled, including Mark Carwardine from the brilliant Last Chance to See.
He had everyone fooled the cheeky Spanish blagger, until he was recently found out and stripped of his award by the judges who reconvened following expert investigation. They concluded that he had hired the wolf and had its trainers to instruct it to jump the fence. How many times did Ossian have to jump that fence before Rodders got the lighting just right.
In his defence, you don’t see all the old masters’ work being rubbished because they had hired prostitutes as models, but I guess that’s not really the same is it. Anyway, the fact is that he’s been stripped of his crown because he broke the rules, so you’d imagine that the places would all move down. Whoever was the runner up gets bumped up to #1, bronze to silver etc. However, it appears that the 2009 competition is to be the only one in its 46 year history not to have a winner.
The pic will be removed from the exhibition at the Natural History Museum entirely, but I bet that’s little consolation to Jonny photographer numero dos.
