Prespa Trout auction painting results

Elaine Chen and Charlotte Walter’s creative adventure into raising awareness of at-risk species and their campaign #OurVulnerableEarth2021  came to an end last Thursday on Earth Day 2021. What started with a Calendar for Non-profits the year before, culminated in an auction of the original prints created for the calendar. Their campaign raised an amazing 3700 Canadian Dollars for Non-profits working in the field of Conservation.

Elaine Chen who is an illustrator from Vancouver, Canada and Charlotte Walter, a scientist from the University of Freiburg, Germany said:

“At midnight on Earth Day 2021 we wrapped up the last event of our year-long calendar project to raise awareness for 12 unique endangered species and their respective vulnerable habitats. We could not be more humbled by the amount of support and love for the animals we saw during the week of bidding. Indeed, there was even a friendly bidding war over the Prespa Trout! In the end, it was a smashing success raising 1.3k, which brings our total up to 3.7k for the entire 2021 Calendar Project. We were a humble team of two but we discovered just how many of you share our desire for our animals and our shared habitats to thrive.”

The Prespa trout (Salmo peristericus) is listed as Endangered (EN) on the global IUCN Red List. It currently inhabits the headwaters of rivers Brajchinska, Kranska and Leva, in the Macedonian part of Prespa, as well as the Agios Germanos river in the Greek part. A recent study supported by PONT confirmed the high risk of global extinction of the Prespa trout.

We take this opportunity to thank them for choosing to donate the funds raised by the #Prespa Trout painting to #PONT and for highlighting the need for Conservation and the need to protect Endangered Species around the world.