We’ve all experienced the frustration of discovering a missing jigsaw puzzle piece at one time or another, but a missing piece in one of the World Wildlife Fund Canada’s new “Endangered Pieces” puzzles has some significant real-world implications.
Working with agency partner AKQA, illustrator Jocelin Carmes and the Copenhagen-based studio Kühl & Han for visuals and films, the organization this week launched “Endangered Pieces” to raise awareness and funds for its efforts to protect the planet.
Timed to coincide with National Panda Day (March 16), the campaign is comprised of four puzzles featuring images of endangered species: The Southern Resident killer whale, Sumatran tiger, giant panda and pygmy three-toed sloth.
The number of pieces is different for each puzzle, however, with each piece representing one of the corresponding animals that remains in the wild.
Thanks to successful conservation efforts over the past three decades, the giant panda puzzle is the largest at 1,864 pieces, for example, while the Southern Resident killer whale—whose population has been reduced by several factors including noise and chemical pollution and a lack of food—has just 73 pieces. The sloth puzzle contains 79 pieces, and the Sumatran tiger has 400.
The puzzles range in price from $30 for the tiger puzzle up to $45 for the panda, with all proceeds going to the WWF’s conservation efforts.
“We know the planet is in crisis, and the window to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees and avoid the extinction of at-risk species is closing,” said WWF Canada’s vice-president of marketing, Mark Charles. “But there is still time to reverse the path we are on if we act now, with the right conservation actions in the right places.”