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Go Elephants, an exciting art initiative that has taken art away from the gallery and onto the streets of Norwich, has led to a stampede of visitors in the city, including celebrity elephant lover Martin Clunes.

The Doc Martin and Men Behaving Badly star was in Norwich on Tuesday, 6 August, 2008 to help raise awareness of the Go Elephants charity auction in September.

"I think they are gorgeous. What's interesting is they've captured people's eye. Kids are all over them, adults are taking their photos and people are taking the city guides and have hung onto them," said Martin.

"It obviously triggers something in people's imagination and that's half the battle, all we need now is to raise a bit of money," he added.

March of the elephants

There are more than 50 elephants in the herd, individually decorated by Norfolk artists and community groups to create a splash of colour across the city centre and showcase the range of creative talent that exists across the county.

This elephant escaped the urban jungle

The baby elephants are made of fibreglass and are mostly decorated with paints and other materials and then finished to be weatherproof. Each weighs around 50kg and stands at 120cm high.

When the event closes at the end of August, the elephants will be taken off the streets, given a bath and a large majority will be sold at a gala auction, with 75 per cent of the proceeds going to the Born Free Foundation and CLIC Sargent Children's Charity.

The Go Elephants project was developed by The Forum Trust and Wild In Art, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of art through the use of its unique animal sculptures as a 3D artist's canvas.

Ivory sales

With the use of its animal sculptures, Wild In Art believes that it can raise awareness of the challenges facing many of the world's animal species.

Concerns for the future of the elephant have been highlighted recently following a decision by the the UN to give China the green light to bid in a one-off sale of ivory.

The Convention On International Trade In Endangered Species (CITES) voted in favour of China's request during a meeting in Geneva.

China joins Japan as approved buyers of government-owned ivory from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

"On the ground that means poaching will go through the roof," said Martin, who is patron of the Born Free Foundation.

"Now charities like the Born Free Foundation have to ask people for money to put anti-poaching squads in place to try and stop the species from being wiped out as for some reason the people in China and Japan haven't got the message that ripping the teeth of these lovely animals to make trinkets is unwise.

"It's disgraceful when you think about it, but you've only got to point that out to people and I think it might move on. So hopefully we'll raise a bit of an awareness and a lot of money at the auction on the 23rd.

"Sometimes it's just about giving people the right opportunity to help out because I think everybody does when given the opportunity.

Light Construction by Becca Smith

"If you look at Comic Relief or Live Aid, when given the opportunity, they cough up in their millions.

"For me, or Joanna Lumley, or people off the telly it's quite easy for us to have that opportunity as we can help raise that awareness and hopefully raise some money.

"It's not always easy to identify what you can do to help but if it's pointed out I think people do rise to the occasion," he added.

Go Elephants protection

The Go Elephants trail has delighted thousands of visitors to Norwich, but the event hasn't been without incident. The first full weekend saw serious damage to two of the herd.

Vandals managed to drive a hole through the flank of Golden Child on Gentleman's Walk and 'poached' the ears of the Sainsbury Centre's Parallelephant on Theatre Plain.

The vandalism sparked a huge response from the on-line community network site Facebook where a group, Stop Vandalism Of Norwich Elephants, was created with around 4000 people joining.

Go Elephants! can be viewed through Norwich city centre until Sunday, 31 August, 2008. The charity auction takes place at The Forum on Tuesday, 23 September.