Photographer Page

Bill Curtsinger

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In this picture from the November 1971 issue, a gentoo penguin wears radio backpack that provides scientists with data on its blood flow and pressure.

Double-layered tents shelter researchers from wind in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. As part of an expedition in the mid-1980s, scientists dove in the sound, with water temperatures around -2 degrees Celsius.

While most seals make their homes in colder climates, the Hawaiian monk seals prefer the warm, sandy beaches of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

A fisherman collects cichlids in his net in Lake Malawi. More than 850 species of cichlids live in Lake Malawi.

Cod and other commercial ground fish are caught in a net in the Gulf of Maine. Our appetite for fish is wreaking havoc on aquatic populations worldwide. The conservation group World Wildlife Fund predicts that if cod fisheries continue to be fished at current rates, there will be no cod left by 2022. “Seventy-five percent of fisheries are overfished,“ says marine biologist Enric Sala. “If nothing changes, all fisheries will have collapsed by 2050.“ The solution, says Sala—a National Geographic Society fellow—is involving all levels of society, from consumers to policy makers. “The solutions exist, we just need the political will to implement them at [a] large scale,“ he adds.

A shark threatens a fledgling albatross on French Frigate Shoals in Hawaii.

A Hawaiian monk seal swims in the French Frigate Shoals in the northwestern Hawaii. Monk seals have become critically endangered because of increased ocean pollution, coastal habitat loss, and fishing gear that entangles them.

Specimen photographed in the Bishop Museum, Oahu, Hawaii.

A gold chalice is flanked by an amphora (left) and a two-handled cup called a kylix amid the wreckage of an ancient merchant vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. The 50-foot (15-metre) ship was laden with valuables and commodities when it sank some 3,400 years ago near Turkey.