Do you live in the world? And do you enjoy wildlife? If so, we’re here to tell you about a day you’ll love! World Wildlife Day happens on the 3rd of March every year. This wonderful event, created by the UN, celebrates the amazing creatures and plants all around us. It also showcases the innovative conservation work going on.
This year’s theme is ‘Connecting People and Planet: Exploring Digital Innovation in Wildlife Conservation’. People are doing all sorts of clever things with tech, from monitoring animal populations with drones to sharing research with the click of a mouse. Want to get involved too? Yay! Read on for some ideas about how you can mark the occasion.
(Anything you do is positive regardless of how big or small it is, so don’t feel like this is a checklist of tasks you have to complete!)
Start at home
Your Garden
Birds, hedgehogs, bugs and plenty of other creatures count as wildlife, and they’ll all appreciate a welcoming garden. You could use the 3rd of March as an excuse to install a new nestbox, hedgehog box or bug hotel to help conserve our precious biodiversity. (Maybe even install all three if you’ve got the space!)
Appropriate food sources will also be of massive help to your visitors. They’ll thank you by being all cute and entertaining, which sounds like a good deal to us.
Looking to help some hedgehogs? Check out this post to discover what’s good for them. We also know what birds like on the menu; click here and you can too!
Get friends and family involved
The word ‘connecting’ is in this year’s theme, so how about enjoying wildlife alongside those closest to you. You could go birdwatching with a neighbour, or send a friend a video of that squirrel who had another try at your bird feeder.
If you’ve got some younger family members, why not go and search for some creepy crawlies in your back garden? (You could also do this with adults if you want to, of course.)
Just be sure to safely release any tiny critters if you put them in a bug observation box; most of them have things to do!
These are just a few ideas to get you going. Nature’s a diverse ol’ thing, and there are (at least) as many ideas for enjoying it as there are people.
Help your community
Want to go a bit further, figuratively and literally? Look for ways to help your local community and you’re bound to find something before long. This could be something small, like picking up some litter next time you go for a walk. A crisp packet in the gloved hand is worth two – or more – creatures not ingesting parts of it in the bush. The litter bugs might not thank you, but they’re not included in the list of wildlife we love. Bonus points if anything suitable finds its way to a recycling bin.
You could also look for organised events to help with. ‘Clean Up Bristol Harbour’ is a great option in our local area. They run clean ups every month, so there are plenty of opportunities to get involved and perhaps meet some new friends. That sounds pretty connected to us.
There’ll be something similar close to you for sure, so load up your search engine of choice and see what’s going on.
Support charities
If you want thanks for handing a hedgehog a tenner, you’re going to need an intermediary. Thankfully, there are plenty of wildlife charities who can fulfil that role. For example, we love the Avon Wildlife Trust, ‘the largest local charity working to protect wildlife and inspire people in the West of England’.
The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) is another worthy organisation to support. For World Wildlife Day, they’re running their #WORLDWITHOUTNATURE event for another year. Businesses are encouraged to remove any references to nature from their logos on the 3rd of March, to raise awareness of how important the natural world is to us all.
Those are a couple of charities to consider, but there are many more which could benefit from your support, however big or small.
Tune in to the bigger picture
The United Nations are hosting their own World Wildlife Day event on the 4th of March. Our tickets to attend in New York got lost in the mail, so we’ll be checking out the livestream instead. (There’s an outside chance we weren’t invited, but the ‘lost in the mail’ idea makes us feel better about ourselves.)
Watching will show you what those at the forefront of conservation efforts are doing, and how they’re harnessing technology to help species across the world. It will also reinforce how important this work is, now more than ever. Visit this page to learn how to tune in. You can also watch the recording from last year’s event in the meantime.
Share on social media!
Whatever nature-related hijinks you get up to, sharing them online is a great way to fit in with World Wildlife Day 2024’s digital theme. Carefully picked up and recycled a can with a sharp edge? Take a picture and encourage others to do the same.
Or maybe your wildlife camera has captured some fantastic footage of a feathered friend frolicking fancifully. In that case, we wanna see! (Click here for an amazing example from one of our lovely customers.) Post it on your social media platform(s) of choice and make sure to tag us.
Speaking of tagging, World Wildlife Day has several hashtags you can use to join in with the wider conversation. #ConnectingPeopleAndPlanet, #WWD2024, #DigitalInnovation and #WorldWildlifeDay are all worth searching for and using.
How about a wildlife-themed poem?
This one could be especially good for the kids, but it’s great for any age, really! Come up with a poem to share with everyone on the 3rd of March. As long as it features wildlife, you’ve done it correctly. To give you some ideas, here’s one of ours:
A garden full of birds
Is a little less absurd
Than a marrow full of sparrows
(which has never yet occurred).
Yours will definitely be better. Remember to prove it by tagging us when you share it!
To reiterate, anything you do on the 3rd of March and beyond is going to help the natural world. Your efforts might feel like a drop of water in the desert, but they’ll mean the world to the individual animal(s) they benefit.
Head over to World Wildlife Day’s website for more inspiration and ideas about how you can get involved. And, once again, don’t forget to let us know about how you’re getting connected digitally on social media!
