Above is a picture of Buzz playing with a Coke barrel.
Just before Christmas, Buzz & Neil got some holiday gifts of their own! Coca-Cola donated fifty clean plastic 55-gallon syrup barrels for the bears to play with in their own environment. Ordinarily, these plastic barrels are used to store concentrate syrup which is used during production at the Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling Company located in Eagan, Minnesota. The barrels were carefully cleaned and inspected before they were given to the bears. Buzz loved the barrels so much that he played with them for six hours straight and even took a barrel to bed with him! Since the barrels have been such a hit with the bears, zookeepers plan to introduce them to other animals within the coming months.
This isn’t the first time that Coca-Cola has done something good for polar bears. They were first featured in Coca-Cola’s holiday advertising campaigns in 1922 and have reappeared many times over the years. Last November, Coca-Cola launched its “Arctic Home” campaign – an initiative between Coca-Cola and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to raise awareness and funds to help protect the polar bear’s Arctic habitat. To call attention to the cause, Coca-Cola has introduced limited-edition “Arctic Home” Coca-Cola cans over the holiday season.
Coca-Cola is making an initial donation of $2 million to WWF and inviting others to join the effort. Anyone who wants to help the polar bears can text the package code to 357357 to donate $1 to WWF. They also can donate online at ArcticHome.com. Coca-Cola will match all donations made with a package code by March 15, 2012, up to a total of $1 million. Funds raised will go toward WWF’s conservation efforts to protect polar bear habitats – for their survival today and in the future. WWF’s vision is to help protect the polar bears’ Arctic home. This includes working with local residents to manage an area high in the Arctic where the summer sea ice will likely persist the longest. This area – potentially covering 500,000 square miles – could provide a home for the polar bear while protecting the cultural and economic needs of local people.
For more information on “Arctic Home,” visit http://www.arctichome.com/.
Neil playing with a plastic Coke bottle full of fish
