There are some emails that land in my inbox that instantly inspire me to do something. The ones I read and feel an immediate reaction towards and the ones that stay in my mind for days to come. This was true when I received an email from WWF inviting us to the screening of their Christmas advert, along with a tiger fun filled day.
The email said:
'The tiger is the biggest, the most iconic, and one of the most endangered of all cats. Sadly wild tiger numbers have declined by over 95% during the last century due to threats like poaching and habitat loss. But now for the first time in conservation history, their numbers are increasing and there are now almost 3,900 tigers in the wild.'
I wanted to be involved, to help spread the word that the tiger numbers for the first time in conservation history are increasing and we need to continue to do more to protect wild tigers. In fact the WWF are calling on the public to become Tiger Protectors, to help achieve their goal to double the number of wild tigers by 2022 – the next Chinese Year of the Tiger. I needed the girls to see how important this is, especially for their generation.
Whilst we had an early start the girls were excited at the prospect of seeing animals, I didn't really have the heart to disappoint them so just went with it. As it turns out the living planet centre has lots of hands on exhibitions, plus the VR tiger experience seemed to satisfy the girls desire to see real animals.
Before we could learn about tigers it was important that we became tigers.
Even Little Man who was too young for face paint got into the tiger spirit with ears and a tail
Little Man loved crawling over the life size tiger, a little tiger cub. He was really confused though by the girls faces.
After learning about tigers, their habitats and how we could protect them we were treated to the first screening of the WWF Christmas advert.
This has to be one of the most emotive adverts from the WWF I have ever seen. It highlights the importance of protecting tigers whilst at the same time showing an understanding that they are wild animals. The girls and Little Man are now tiger protectors and have pledged to look after the tigers. In doing so they receive a personalised tiger protector book, which is such a wonderful keepsake. We have pledged to protect tigers, will you?
Thanks to the WWF for inviting us to spend the morning with them, we have not been financial compensated in anyway and we also have not been asked to write a post. We just wanted to document our adventure.
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