The week in wildlife

Week in wildlife in pictures: happy elephants, a tiny koala and baboons taking liberties

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Heavy goods vehicle … Kenya Wildlife Service rangers release five elephants at Aberdare National Park in central Kenya. They came from the nearby Mwea National Reserve, where – in a bit of conservation-related good news – the elephant population has reached capacity, requiring the relocation of about 100 pachyderms to Aberdare

Photograph: Brian Inganga/AP

A family of elephants walk together at the Aberdare National Park after their relocation

Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

An orphaned koala joey named Ajooni being fed by wildlife caregiver Emma Meadows in Sydney, Australia. There are between 95,000 and 524,000 koalas left in the country, possibly down from millions before European settlement. Expanding cities, land clearance and the spread of chlamydia are all devastating the populations of one of the country’s most iconic animals

Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Family likeness … a bison calf stands with its mother in woodland near Canterbury, UK. Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust are the two charities behind the Wilder Blean bison project, an award-winning conservation project; they have welcomed two calves to the herd, bringing their wild bison population to eight

Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

A sika deer at the Jaegersborg deer park north of Copenhagen, Denmark. The species is native to east Asia, but has been introduced all over the world; there is even a herd keeping the ponies company on the island of Lundy in Devon

Photograph: Thomas Traasdahl/EPA

A female Allen’s hummingbird rests on the leaf of an amaryllis plant in a suburban garden of Orange County, California, US. She is less than 3.5in (89mm) long, and weighs about the same as a sheet of A4 paper

Photograph: Bruce Chambers/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Save Mrs Tiggy-Winkle! … wildlife charities have launched the first-ever national hedgehog conservation strategy to halt the species’ decline across the UK. The People’s Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society want to halt the plummeting numbers of native hedgehogs

Photograph: Christopher Morgan/PA

Right under his nose … a monkey climbs on a statue at the entrance to the Golden Temple of Dambulla, Sri Lanka

Photograph: Ishara S Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

A bird perches atop a buffalo in a field near Las Tiamitas, northern Venezuela

Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images

Two chacma baboons sit down to a meal while the kids play on a car in Capri, south of Cape Town, South Africa

Photograph: Nic Bothma/Reuters

Ginger nuts … a red squirrel forages for food at the Widdale Red Squirrel Reserve in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, UK

Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Common cranes fly above a reservoir at sunset near Balmazújváros, eastern Hungary

Photograph: Zsolt Czeglédi/EPA

A fiery skipper butterfly gathers nectar and pollen on a lantana plant in Orange County, California, US

Photograph: Bruce Chambers/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

A Palestine mountain gazelle in the wilderness near the village of Dura al-Qara, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank

Photograph: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

An Indian flying fox, one of the largest bat species in the world, hangs from the branches of a tree in Bhaktapur, Nepal

Photograph: Skanda Gautam/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

A bee collects pollen from a dahlia flower at the National Trust property Greys Court, Oxfordshire, UK

Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Rex/Shutterstock

Crocodile smile … a spectacled caiman on the bank of a stream near Las Tiamitas, Venezuela

Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images

Living up to its name, an admirable grasshopper delicately feeds at the Yamuna biodiversity park in New Delhi, India

Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA

A sperm whale in the Azores, photographed by Jeroen Hoekendijk, who spent a week on the archipelago capturing the abundance of marine life there. “This sub-adult female, about 10 metres long, hung beneath the clear surface of the water,” says Hoekendijk. “It almost looked like a chlorinated swimming pool – except that it was 1km deep.” See more of his images in our gallery

Photograph: Jeroen Hoekendijk