Some unusual creatures have a new home today: selected members of London Zoo’s coral collection have temporarily moved into a department store.

The Zoological Society of London has joined forces with Selfridges for Project Ocean, a month long effort to draw attention to the plight of the world’s oceans. For the event which began yesterday, Selfridges will set up a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Philippines, move to selling only sustainable fish in its restaurants and foodhall and create a range of themed displays and activities in store.

The most spectacular of these displays are the famous windows: for the next month, they have been solely given over to Project Ocean, with displays including a huge carpet of corals of all shapes and sizes:

Several sections on sustainable fishing, the best suggesting that if we don’t act now, we’ll soon be ordering jellyfish and chips:

And my personal favourite, and drawing the largest crowds outside the windows today, a brilliantly manipulative effort with a giant furry panda next to a tuna and the slogan “You wouldn’t eat a panda. Stop eating endangered tuna.”

Inside the shop, there are further activities. A whale rodeo looks like loads of fun and is £1 a go, all proceeds to ZSL towards the creation of marine reserves. Balloon artist Jason Hackenwerth has created a series of giant balloon sculptures of sea creatures which are suspended from the ceiling and for today’s launch there were actors dressed in giant balloon sealife costumes. From today there will be a series of demonstrations of cooking with sustainable foods in the Foodhall, featuring celebrity chefs including Antonio Carluccio.

Whale Rodeo

Balloon sea creatures

The centre of Project Ocean is the Ultralounge, opening to the public today where talks and events will be held all month. A highlight looks to be tonight’s “Fishing in Troubled Waters” hosted by Sunday Times Environmental editor Charles Clover. More information and tickets available on Selfridge’s Project Ocean website.

The Ultralounge is also the home for the next month of the live coral. 22 species of coral have been moved to Selfridges, all of which originally were originally illegally imported into the country, seized by Customs and Excise and donated to London Zoo. ZSL have created a fascinating video looking at what’s involved in moving corals, from ensuring the water condition remains as similar as possible to looking at the light conditions to which corals are particularly sensitive. London Zoo keeper and self described “coral geek” Kiernan Parbles also talks about the importance of this exposure at Selfridges: well worth a watch on the ZSL website.

Selfridges is the second largest department store in the UK, founded in 1909. ZSL is the leading conservation charity which runs London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo. Its scientific research arm, the Institute of Zoology, is a Government funded research organisation which also runs a range of graduate degree programmes. Selfridges and ZSL have created Project Ocean, partnering with more than 20 other conservation organisations.

Project Ocean: Window displays, conservation activities in store and public lectures. May 11th – June 12th. Most activities free: see https://www.selfridges.com/projectocean for more information.