Bristol Zoo kindly allowed us to take Paula polar bear to the zoo on Friday and Saturday to draw attention to the Greenpeace campaign for an Arctic Sanctuary.
We took it in turns to 'wear the bear' in the sweltering heat. We now know what global warming does to polar bears and it ain’t pretty! However, the interest from the kids compensated for the 'sweat lodge' effect.
The littler kids believed Paula to be a true bear: some were terrified by the realistic claws and refused to come near; others were fascinated and tried to crawl all over. Whilst I was wearing the bear, one small and curious boy managed to poke his finger through a stitching gap on the wrist and exclaimed in a shocked manner “Skin! There’s a person inside the bear!”.
We were trialling ipad sign-ups to our Arctic campaign. People were happy to tap their details in and most were au fait with touchscreen interfaces. We got up to 420 sign-ups before a technical glitch on Saturday lunchtime when we reverted to old-fashioned paper.
Many thanks to the Greenpeace zoo crew: Captain Fi, Richard B, Natasha, Maureen, Sarah, Carol, Sue, Greg, Mark U, Birgit, Paddy, Lauren, Ian, Max, Cordelia, Stacey and John!
Also a huge thank you to the zoo for having us, they made our day easy and enjoyable and we hope to co-operate with them again.
Paula polar bear will be thoroughly febreezed before her next outing!
Be sure to like our Facebook page so you know what’s coming up next for Greenpeace in Bristol: www.facebook.com/GreenpeaceBristol
Some lovely pictures from Birgit can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48798428@N02/sets/72157631045541968/with/7772396206/
Comments