Wildlife comedy photography is what 2016 needs

The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards is exactly what it sounds like: a competition devoted to choosing the funniest wildlife photography of the year. Among the rules of this cutthroat competition: The photograph must "[combine] the best technical excellence with the most amusing content and caption," and that the photographer must have taken the picture "within the last 99 years." (There's also Rule #16, which endorses Bohemian Rhapsody as "one of the greatest pieces of popular music ever written," but they took that back immediately. Shame.)

This year's finalists prove that even during this most horrifying of blazing garbage fires that is 2016, there's something to genuinely smile about. Cute critters, naturally.

You can check out (and heartily thank) the rest of the finalists on The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards official website.

This story originally appeared on Esquire.com.
Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.