IPANM (Sept. 10, 2022) – IPANM is proud to announce the winners of the 2022 IPANM Wildlife in the Oilfield Photo Contest!  This year’s contest marked the 18th year IPANM has proudly hosted this contest which promotes wildlife using manmade structures in the oilfield to flourish!

Photo Contest Winners & Winning Photos

IPANM would like to announce this year’s 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Place photos:

• In third place with a $500 prize, coming in with this photo of entitled “Snake Wrap”…. please join me in congratulating Ryan Davis of Merrion Oil & Gas who took this photo in the dead of winter. Quite a surprise, as you can imagine, when we went out a site visit and found this rattler snuggling around a pipe for warmth.
• In second place, a covey (kuhv-EE) of Northern Bobwhite birds near a wellsites, hanging out and popping their heads up just to see what’s going on. Congratulations to Joseph Richards who submitted this shot, and wins $750. A couple of quick facts about Northern Bobwhites:  they travel in packs known as “coveys” and run across the ground from the shelter of one shrubby patch to another. When they are flushed, they explode into flight with quick wingbeats and then duck into the nearest cover.
• And, this year’s winner of the 2022 Wildlife in the Oilfield contest and the $1000 prize is….Renae Cox, who submitted a photo of a pack of mule deer as they traverse near a tank battery. Mule deer frequently use oilfield equipment for shelter and warmth, especially during wintertime.

IPANM had terrific submissions this past year.  All of the photos were distributed to our Board of Directors without knowledge of who submitted them. We did have Board members who submitted photos this year, and they were not allowed to vote.  Each Board member ranked their top 5 photos, and the cumulative rankings were used to tabulate our top three winners.

For a little history, When the Alaskan pipeline was being built, environmentalists bemoaned the fate of the caribou saying the animals would suffer immensely. Well, as we know, the exact opposite happened. In Prudhoe Bay, the number of caribou has quintupled since production began in early 1978. The caribou often use the oil field equipment and the adjoining Alaskan pipeline for a windbreak and warmth.

In New Mexico oil fields, many species of wildlife also use equipment in a productive manner. Birds will use elevated surfaces as foundations for nests. Deer, like caribou, use the equipment for a windbreak and warmth.

Since 2004, IPANM’s has amassed a library of over 1500 photos that demonstrate wildlife adapting to manmade changes in their environment. In fact, the Wildlife-in-the-Oilfield is one of the top three webpages for hits on our website…consistently…every year.