Best Ecological Advocacy Photograph Award at CIMASUB 2025: An Injured Blue Shark in the Cantabrian Sea

At the 49th edition of CIMASUB – the Donostia International Underwater Film Festival, we had the honor of receiving the Best Ecological Advocacy Photograph Award.
A recognition that, rather than celebrating an image, highlights a problem that continues to grow beneath the surface: the impact of human activity on marine wildlife in the Cantabrian Sea.

The award-winning photograph depicts a blue shark (Prionace glauca), elegant and calm even in its fragility, accompanied by six pilot fish that escort it with the natural rhythm of an ancient biological ritual. But the scene breaks at one point: a fishing line tangled around its head, embedded in the skin and opening a deep wound that should not be there. A direct, raw mark of the damage we cause—even when we do not see it.

The Cantabrian Sea is alive and powerful, but also vulnerable. The blue sharks that cross it every summer are regular visitors, an essential part of the ecosystem’s balance. Yet they increasingly encounter an ocean that does not always let them pass. Lost nets, abandoned lines, remnants of recreational or sport fishing… small human decisions that end up becoming silent traps.

This photograph does more than document a moment—it exposes a daily reality for the creatures that inhabit our seas and oceans, a wound that often goes unnoticed because we are not there to witness it day after day. The beauty of the animal contrasts sharply with the violence of the object that injures it, and it is within that contradiction that the image finds its strength. It is not comfortable to look at. Nor should it be. If we continue to talk about conservation only from a distance, nothing will change.

That CIMASUB has awarded this photograph sends a clear message: the message matters, and the ocean needs us to be more direct, more transparent, and above all, more responsible. We hope this image helps spark uncomfortable conversations, raise awareness, and remind us that marine wildlife in the Cantabrian Sea does not need heroes—it needs us to stop harming it.

We thank the festival jury and the CIMASUB organization for creating a space where underwater photography and video do more than celebrate the beauty of the ocean—they also expose its wounds.
And above all, we thank the blue shark itself.

It did the hard part: it kept moving forward, even with a line embedded in its head. The least we can do is look the wound straight in the eye and ask ourselves what we are willing to change.