A picture of a hunting wolf has won the prestigious¹ Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award.

一张正在捕猎的狼的照片赢得了显赫的2009年度威立雅环境野生动物摄影师大奖。

Jose Luis Rodriguez's haunting portrait of an Iberian wolf won over the judges

Jose Luis Rodriguez captured the imaginations of the judges with a picture that he had planned for years, and even sketched² out（拟订） on a piece of paper.

"I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting - or predation（捕食，掠夺） - but without blood," he told BBC News. "I didn't want a cruel image."

With a great deal of patience and careful observation of the wolves' movements, he succeeded in taking the award-winning photograph.

Mr Rodriguez used a custom-built infrared³ trap to snap the wolf as it leapt into the air.

The WPY competition, now in its 45th year, is owned by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum.

The panel of judges looked through more than 43,000 entries to this year's competition.

This is the fifth year that wildlife photographer Mark Carwardine has been on the judging panel. He said of the winning photo: "It's captured thousands of years of human-wolf interaction in just one moment."