Animals show their silly side in Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

(Courtesy Angela Bohlke/Comedy Wildlife Photography)

Professional photographers and amateur travelers spend hours staking out the perfect scene to capture wildlife in all its glory.

From lions hunting to gazelles leaping, we’ve all seen the classic pictures of majestic animals in their natural habitat.

But animals aren’t majestic 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes they can be pretty funny.

That’s the idea behind the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Now in its second year, the CWPA seeks out the lighter side of animal photography featuring dozens of "lol-worthy" pictures of critters of all shapes and sizes.

From a smiling frog, to a fox with its head stuck in the snow, these pictures are sure to put a smile on your face.

But the message behind the seemingly silly contest is to promote a serious message of conservation.

“I don’t think it’s the funny images themselves [that] are helping promote conservation,” Paul Joynson-Hicks, the founder of CWPA and a professional photographer tells FoxNews.com. “It’s  the fact that so far this year we have had 810,000 people who have looked at our website and hopefully from that, they can glean some understanding that a conservation problem exists.”

Joynson-Hicks works closely with the Born Free Foundation, a U.K.-based charity that works globally to combat animal suffering and protect threatened species.  The photographer hopes that this lighthearted contest will raise awareness for the work that Born Free is doing. With more images, comes more awareness.

This year, CWPA received entries from 75 countries—about half of which came from photographers based in the U.S. and the U.K.

Winners of the contest will get to go on a safari in the Maasai Mara in Kenya led by Joynson-Hicks, a Nikon D810 camera and a handmade trophy.

The finalists for this year have already been chosen and the winner will be announced during a ceremony on Nov. 9.