Elephant Parade in London

Every now and then my friend and I exchange emails updating each other on what we did over the weekend and one morning I received an email with lovely photos attached of beautifully painted Elephants that were so colorful it instantly put a smile on my face. In the email I was told that my friend took those pictures when she participated in an event in London that involved going around the city and looking for these life-sized elephants.

I decided to read up more about this and found out some interesting information which I would love to share with you.

The Elephant Parade in London

This Elephant Parade in London is part of a conservation campaign that focuses attention on the urgent crisis faced by the endangered Asian Elephant. The parade involves having 258 brightly and beautifully painted elephants placed all across London. People spend the day hunting elephants to see how many they can find as a way of raising awareness to the plight that is face by the endangered Asian elephants. This parade is as a result of the work by ELEPHANT FAMILY . This event takes place during the months of May to July 2010 and is recorded as London's biggest outdoor art event thus far. It was founded by a father and son team - Mike and Marc Spits.

According to the Elephant Parade London website, each elephant is decorated by a different artist or celebrity. This would mean that the elephants are painted based on their own individual ideas and creativity. Since the elephants are placed all around the city, they help to brighten up and beautify the place, enhancing the parks and street corners. These beautiful elephants will be auctioned off at the end of the conservation event during June 24th to July 4th, 2010 at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. For those of you in London, why not go and see if you can bid for one of these unique treasures? I think they would look great in someone's front or backyard if you have one!

These photos below are all courtesy my friend and belong to her - photos taken by Nadira Kowlessar, 2010. 

I came across this blog which has lots and lots of photos of the elephants so you should definitely go check it out there and they noted here that you can purchase miniature versions of the elephants from this site - Elephant Parade webshop.

The group - Elephant Family

The Elephant Family group work towards saving the Asian elephant from extinction in the wild. It is a small but ambitious charity group, registered in 2002. The Elephant Parade is one of the best opportunities out there to help raise both awareness and money for the cause.

About the Asian Elephant

So what about the animals that sparked this whole effort? Well the Asian elephant is a magnificent creature that is on the brink of extinction as a result of massive habitat loss. There has been a population decline by 90% over the last 100 years. The urgency comes from predictions that in the next 30 years these wonderful animals might vanish altogether.

The petition

After reading all about this cause and the huge efforts that are taking place to raise awareness and draw attention to the plight of the Asian elephant I ended up signing the online petition which will go towards getting governments to act before it's too late. So go check out the website and sign the

petition here too! PLEASE!

There are present 8,929 signatures. I am sure we can do better than that!