Endangered animal emojis = your most adorable good deed of the day

How many times a day do I include an adorable animal emoji in a text or tweet, let me count the ways. The Tiger for my school mascot, the turtle for days I’m moving kinda slow, the elephant just because.

Well did you know that of the bajillion emojis we use on the regular, 17 of the animal emojis depict endangered species? That’s actually kind of crazy. Well, animal/emoji lovers, there is finally a way to use your emoji powers for good. And you might even help save some animals in the process.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched a new fundraising campaign that enlists some of our favorite things — Twitter, cute animals, emojis — with proceeds going toward saving endangered species. All you have to do to donate is use one of the animal emojis on your keyboard or smartphone (which you’re probably already doing anyway) and include the hashtag, #EndangeredEmoji (which you’re probably not already doing, but you will now).

Follow the WWF on Twitter to sign up, and each tweet that includes an animal emoji and the hashtag is worth about 11 cents. The WWF will tally your emoji  usage at the end of the month and send you a bill amount. You can choose to pay that amount, or adjust it up or down based on your current budget. Sounds pretty good! 

There are 17 emoji animals listed on the endangered species list. Thanks to  our friends at Mashable, we now have a handy guide that helps us know which emojis to choose when we’re saving the world one tweet at a time:

• Asian elephant: Conflict with humans and forest destruction threaten their future.
• Giant panda: Habitat loss is most pressing threat to this conservation icon.
• Green turtle: Growing threat from illegal trade in their meat, shells and eggs.
• Maui’s dolphin: Population has plummeted to just 55 due to entanglement in fishing nets.
• African wild dog: Hunting and poisoning by humans are major threats.
• Western gray whale: Oil and gas development in its feeding grounds could spell extinction.
• Sumatran tiger: Poaching and habitat loss threaten the survival of the smallest existing tiger subspecies.
• Galapagos penguin: Pollution, bycatch and climate change are major threats to these birds.
• Lemur leaf frog: Critically endangered due to disease and deforestation.
• Blue whale: Vulnerable to ship strikes and reduction in food supply due to climate change.
• Antiguan racer snake: Possibly the world’s rarest snake, it is threatened by invasive species and natural disasters.
• Spider monkey (x5): Endangered by destruction of tropical forests and hunting.
• Bactrian camel: Numbers keep tumbling due to hunting and competition with livestock.
• Amur leopard: Poached for their beautiful fur, there could be just 70 left in the wild.
• Tiger: All subspecies are endangered due to illegal trade in fur and bones.
• Siamese crocodile: Facing extinction due to illegal collection and habitat degradation.
• Bluefin tuna: Rampant overfishing endangers survival of prized species

For more information about how it works, checkout the WWF video:

And yes, yes, YES to an emoji campaign that we fully endorse and love with our whole hearts.