Baby Marsican Brown Bear
LOCATIONS
PERTH
May 2023 - August 2023
WA Museum, Perth Cultural Centre, Perth WA 6000
Visit the sculpture, click for map >
> VISIT THE EXHIBITION WEBSITE
__________________
August 2023 - Permanent Exhibition
Perth Zoo, 20 Labouchere Rd, South Perth WA 6151
Visit the sculpture, click for map >
> DOWNLOAD MAP HERE TO FIND ANIMALS (Coming Soon)
CLICK HERE TO DONATE DIRECTLY TO WWF AUSTRALIA
TITLE
Wild Baby Marsican Brown Bear
GENDER
Male
AGE
1
FOUND
Abruzzi region of Italy
CONSERVATION STATUS
Critically Endangered
Tumbling out of the den, in the Italian mountains, comes this 1-year-old bear and his twin brother in the midst of a wonderful game of ‘who can pin who’. While is a lot of fun, it is also good practice for when they are older! Although for now, their coordination could still use some improving. Living in their national park they feel quite safe, but their mother has warned them to never go too close to the humans, especially when they have a gun. If the humans get scared, then it could be the end of the little bear.
The Marsican brown bear, also known as the Apennine brown bear, is a critically endangered member of the Eurasian brown bear. They inhabit forested areas between 800 and 1700 meters in elevation, where they can reach an age of around 20-25 years. These solitary animals are mainly nocturnal, foraging around for their favourite foods of tubers, roots, fungi, fruits, and berries, but they are also happy to eat insects, honey, eggs, carrion, and even a small mammal or two.
The only times in which these bears are not nocturnal, is during the mating season and when they have cubs. The cubs are usually born in winter, where the mother will find a nice rocky cave to make as a den. She will usually give birth to twins, but sadly the mortality rate for cubs is 50%. The cubs will stay with their mother for 2-3 years but they can roam around independently after only a few months thanks to their mother’s fatty milk.
Only found in a very small part of Italy, these isolated bears have seen their numbers drop dramatically. Currently, estimates have put their numbers at only 50 individuals left in the wild. The majority live in the Abruzzo-Lazio-Molise National Park which was created in 1923 for the specific purpose of protecting the bears. This was a fantastic initiative which helped to protect them from one of their greatest threats at the time, habitat loss. Sadly, with so few numbers remaining, another big threat they now face is genetic diversity, with such a small genetic pool remaining, they are subjected to issues of inbreeding. Finally, and most significantly, even though they are now protected under Italian law, their biggest threat comes from humans, who kill the bears whenever they are deemed a threat to the locals or their cattle.
HOW TO HELP
Based off real animals that Gillie and Marc met while travelling, the public will be able to meet individual animals.
Through public art, more people will come into contact with these sculptures, will stop and consider them, will take a photograph, and will discuss this with their friends and family. With this increased exposure, the message of love, family, and conservation will be spread much further than any piece of art in a gallery ever could. It will bring people into close contact and will help them to fall in love, and with love comes a greater urge to want to create a change and save all endangered animals.
The sculpture will be aligned with the hashtags #LoveTheLast and #wildaboutbabies to raise unparalleled awareness about the sculpture’s cause across the globe.
To help protect these babies you can adopt them and help them via the WWF: > Click here: www.wwf.org.au
If you are interested in buying Wild About Babies related art, you will also be directly helping real babies in the wild with 30% going to WWF to continue their fantastic work for animals conservation: Click here to browse art > https://gillieandmarc.com/collections/wild-about-babies
ABOUT GILLIE AND MARC
Gillie and Marc’s highly coveted public artworks can be found worldwide including in New York, London, Singapore, Shanghai, and Sydney. They are Archibald Prize finalists, won the Chianciano Biennale in Italy, took out the Allens People’s Choice Award in 2016 and 2018 and Kids’ Choice Award in the 2016 Sculpture by the Sea and received the Bayside Arts Festival People's Choice Award in 2019 in Sydney.
The husband-and-wife duo are on a mission to make art for a better tomorrow. They are best known for their beloved characters, Rabbitwoman and Dogman, who tell the autobiographical tale of two opposites coming together as best friends and soul mates.
Gillie and Marc are also passionate eco-warriors and have dedicated their lives to protecting nature.
Gillie grew up with the wildlife in Zambia and Marc studied chimpanzees in Tanzania as a young man. Over time, the artists developed a deep appreciation for all living things and a desire to preserve the magnificence of the natural world.
Through their art, Gillie and Marc aim to transform passive audiences into passionate advocates for animal conservation. Their mission is to use their work as a platform to continue spreading awareness about endangerment, which will ultimately lead to change and save species from extinction.
Their art has raised hundreds of thousands in donations for the many wildlife charities and causes they support through their project Love The Last.
Please follow @gillieandmarcart