Wildlife / Animals nominee

This is an images of a great blue herons snapping up a herring from the Charles River in Greater Boston. The Charles was once so polluted, that boaters who fell in the water were advised to get tetanus shots. After a federally-enforced, globally renowned cleanup, the spring herring run has been restored, drawing herons, osprey, gulls, cormorants and even an occasional eagle.

I have a particular interest in river and wetland imagery to remind viewers of what we have restored as the Trump administration is slashing conservation funding for rivers and wetlands, reversing pollution rules by the Environmental Protection Agency and has packed the Supreme Court with judges who have gutted key portions of the Clean Water Act.

A 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary, a 2021 Scripps Howard winner in Opinion and winner of multiple writing awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Newspaper Columnists (including 2025), and the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Derrick Z. Jackson often keeps a camera at his side to illustrate his pieces.

His images of puffins in Maine were the 2024 winner for Feature Photo in the National Headliner Awards and the Headliner's 2025 second place winner for Individual Photo portfolio. They were a 2025 finalist in three categories from the Outdoor Writers Association of America, OWAA’s 2024 winner for Photo Essay and Action Photography and 2023 winner for both Action and Fauna.

He was also the 2023 Feature Photo winner from the Maine Press Association and one of 12 winners in the 2025 International Photography Competition of ViewPoint Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Jackson is co-author and photographer of “The Puffin Plan," published by Tumblehome Books (2020). It was the 2021 winner in teen nonfiction in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Jackson is also co-author of “Project Puffin," published by Yale University Press (2015).