Here's how some charities used the nation's favourite fake news day to have some fun and also raise awareness of the work they do.
WWF: Polar bear sighting
WWF shared footage of the first wild polar bear sighting in Scotland. The charity suggested that the reason for this could be "unprecedented migration" caused by "lack of prey due to sea ice melt".
The ‘news’ was picked up by the Telegraph, with the headline ‘White mischief: stranded polar bear floats on to Scottish Island.
Guide Dogs: Guide Mogs
Guide Dogs shared some footage of its latest programme training cats to help the blind. It all looks very promising. There seemed to be just a few kinks, but surely they can be worked out…
National Trust: New chalk figure
The National Trust announced that a new chalk figure had been discovered close to the iconic While Horse. This time in the shape of a duck.
Experts suggested that “this figure may be the ancient symbol of a local tribe who venerated wild mallards” but that the duck had been allowed to decay after the horse tribe had prevailed.
The charity called for more support from volunteers to help restore the ancient artwork.
Cancer Research UK: team colours for the Boat Race
April Fools’ Day took place just before the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge universities and CRUK is the charity partner for the event.
The organisers of the Boat Race made the surprising announcement that the teams were set to abandon the traditional dark blue and light blue attire in favour of CRUK’s pink and purple.
RNLI: Name change
RNLI told its Twitter followers that its name didn’t really cover everything it does and shared some alternatives. Though if you look closely you’ll spot some pretty big clues that it’s an April Fool.
Cats Protection: Find a human
The animal charity revealed a twist to its cat rehoming programme – allowing cats to select their humans from pens in a reverse of the traditional model.
Karen Thompson, national cat adoption centre manager, said: “It makes perfect sense. It is important to match the right cat with the right home and what better way to make this happen than by letting the cats choose for themselves?”
The charity clearly has ambitious plans for the scheme.
“Ideally, we’d like to see it become a digital project,” said Karen Thompson. “It will enable the cats to find their perfect home from the comfort of their pen – and they’ll have great fun using the mouse.”
Coppafeel: Boob shower head
The team at Coppafeel is, quite understandably obsessed all things boob, and announced that its latest product was a boob shower head to encourage women to check themselves in the shower.
While the charity has not created a shower head it does offer free shower stickers to act as reminders.
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