NEWS STORY: Pass the panda for Earth Hour
BAS staff support WWF’s Earth Hour with cuddly friend!
This Saturday, 29 March, is WWF’s Earth Hour. Earth Hour aims to focus the world’s attention on the planet and the need to protect it by switching off our lights for one hour. This year, to raise awareness of the campaign, the British Antarctic Survey is joining in WWF’s #Passthepanda, sending Bob the Panda down south to one of our Antarctic research stations.
Bob has taken the Earth Hour message from Cambridge to the very end of the earth. He and the BAS team are now looking forward to switching off and celebrating Earth Hour, tomorrow night at 8:30pm.
Last year 7,000 towns and cities in more than 154 countries took part in Earth Hour, including over 10 million people in the UK. To spread the Earth Hour 2014 message even further, WWF has launched #Passthepanda to create a social buzz online.
60 individually named WWF pandas embarked on their journeys, passing from one person to another and spreading the message of Earth Hour 2014. Their adventures are seen in selfies tweeted @wwf_uk with #Passthepanda.
British Antarctic Survey panda Bob spent a week exploring the Cambridge office; he visited the ice cores and the aquarium, met lab managers and assistants, and got kitted up ready for his Antarctic adventure.
He then set off, with field assistant Malcolm Airey, on four flights (via Madrid, Santiago and Punta Arenas) before finally arriving at Rothera research station, on the Antarctic Peninsula. Since his arrival, the team have introduced him to all the activities undertaken at the research station as well as out in the field. He has been on boats water sampling and diving, riding skidoos and observing the field work.
You can see Bob’s adventures on Twitter.