14 DAY TRIAL // Panda bears are not exactly having the time of their lives these days, and conservation groups are bending over backwards trying to get people to support ongoing efforts to save this endangered species from going extinct sometime in the not so distant future.
When it comes to coming up with innovative ways to raise awareness of the need to protect the world's remaining panda population, there appears to be no denying that the green group the World Wildlife Fund should probably be crowned king and queen of creativity.
Not to beat about the bush, it was back in 2008 when the organization contacted French artist Paulo Grangeon and asked him to piece together a total of 1,600 panda bear replicas.
According to Daily Mail, the chief material that the artist used to complete this green-oriented project was paper mache made from recycled materials.
He also used some paints to make sure that the pandas had eyes, a mouth and other important anatomical parts in the right places, the same source details.
Eventually, the 1,600 paper mache animal replicas that resulted from this collaboration between Paulo Grangeon and the World Wildlife Fund became the stars of an exhibition dubbed Pandas on Tour.
The public first got to meet the French artist's pandas in 2008, when they were put on display at the Paris City Hall. Since then, the bears have been busy traveling all around the world, and have recently made an appearance in Taiwan.
Thus, they are now on display at the National Theater in Taipei, and each and every one of them is resting their paper mache bottom on the spectator seats facing the stage inside said building.
Interestingly enough, it would appear that the paper pandas are not alone. On the contrary, they are accompanied by 200 white-throated bears.
This species is also an endangered one, and the people who organized the exhibition expect that, by displaying replicas of such bears alongside paper mache pandas, they will manage to raise awareness of the need to protect both species.
By the looks of it, a green tree frog that is also made out of paper mache is on display alongside the panda and the white-throated bear replicas.
In case anyone was wondering, the World Wildlife Fund asked French artist Paulo Grangeon to create no more and no less than 1,600 panda replicas due to the fact that, according to reports pieced together by conservationists and wildlife researchers, this is the number of such animals currently left in the world.