Tweet an endangered emoji to help save real animals

#EndangeredEmoji is a campaign from WWF which enables people to donate money, and help save 17 endangered species, by tweeting an emoji.

Seventeen of the animals depicted as emojis are critically endangered species. To raise awareness and money for these much loved creatures, the World Wildlife Fund has launched the #EndangeredEmoji campaign — just in time for today’s Endangered Species Day. To sign up, users simply retweet WWF’s campaign message. Then, every time they use one of the icons in a tweet, EUR 0.10/GBP 0.10 will be suggested as a donation to the cause. Participants are given the option to increase or decrease the total amount to be donated every month.

The campaign will raise funds for animals including giant pandas, galapagos penguins and bluefish tuna. Participants can head to the campaign website to learn more about the species and their plight. Some of the figures are staggering — for example, there are reportedly only 70 Amur Leopard left in the wild, with most having been poached for their fur.

WWF is the latest in a wave of non-profits using Twitter’s new payment capacities to receive funds from donors: we recently featured Charitweet, which enables users to donate to any charity they like via the social media.

How else could emojis be used to educate and enlighten users?