Who
won the Dymocks
Golden Paw Award 2005?
Steve
Krinks
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Who
won the Dymocks |
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The Dymocks Golden Paw Award for 2005 has been announced! The winning entry – chosen out of more than 4,700 drawings - is a delightful portrait of a numbat, full of character and life, by Caitlin Costarella of Corowa South Public School. Caitlin’s work is even more remarkable for the fact that she is only seven years old. Caitlin and her family travelled all the way from the Victorian border to receive the award from Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC, Governor of New South Wales at the award ceremony at the Australian Maritime Museum on September 19 .
In front of proud parents, teachers and a television crew Her Excellency presented medals to Caitlin and 10 finalists. In her speech she thanked the children for their great effort in raising awareness of our threatened species “When you grow up the future of Australia and its threatened wildlife will be in your hands, and I know you will do a great job looking after it.” The 2005 Awards were the most successful yet, with 4,729 entries received – the most since the Awards’ inception in 2002. “The Dymocks Golden Paw Award is about the art of conservation”, said Foundation President Peter Janssen. “It is about drawing attention to Australia’s threatened animals, and nobody has a better eye for the beauty of our wildlife than the children. I have four kids myself and I am continuously amazed at their ability to show me the beauty of nature. “You and all the other children who entered the Golden Paw award have not only made a splash for our wildlife, you have actually helped us raise money to save them,” he said.
Awards sponsor Dymocks had pledged to donate one dollar to the Foundation for every entry, to help the Foundation protect Australia’s threatened species. Amazed by the overwhelming flood of entries and their outstanding quality Dymocks CEO Don Grover decided to top up the original contribution and presented a ‘big’ cheque of $7,500 to the Foundation.
The Golden Paw award was initiated in 2002 by the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife to raise awareness of Australia’s threatened species amongst primary school children and the general public. Children, often entire school classes, enter the award by submitting pictures of their favourite threatened species, along with a statement about why they chose that species to draw or paint. Entries for each year close on September 7, which is National Threatened Species Day. This date was chosen because it was on this day in 1936 that Benjamin, the last known Tasmanian Tiger, died in captivity at Hobart Zoo. The trophies of the Dymocks Golden Paw Award feature a Tassie Tiger paw print in brass as a tribute to the Thylacine and all those species that have disappeared for lack of care and understanding.
The awards are judged by experts – this year the judges were Suzanne O'Neil from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and Alec George from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This year it took them 6 hours to go through all the entries and decide on the winners. With the 2005 Awards, the Foundation was drawing attention to threatened aquatic fauna – animals that live on or near the water. Many of the entrants followed this theme, with a wide range of animals represented, from Buchanan’s Fairy Shrimp to Humpback Whales and everything in between. Click here to see the winners and runners-up in each age group and their pictures The Foundation for
National Parks and Wildlife congratulates all entrants, their teachers
and their schools for such a high standard of work, and thanks everyone
involved in the event. Special thanks go to Dymocks, without whose generous
sponsorship the Golden Paw Award could not be as successful as it is today. |
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