Premier League clubs remove animals for badges to raise awareness of animal extinction on World Wildlife Day

Aston Villa, Wolves, West Brom have all removed the animals from their badges in order to spread awareness of animal extinction on World Wildlife Day.

The campaign is being run in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), with Coventry City, Middlesbrough and Brentford, as well as Serie A side AS Roma, also participating.

Across all of their social media platforms, each club have posted an image of what their crest would look like with the animals removed, to reflect the concerning trend of dwindling wildlife across the world. In West Brom's case, the thrush that normally features has been erased, while the wolf on Wolves' badge and the lion of Aston Villa's are also absent.

WWF have supported the initiative themselves by taking off the iconic panda from their logo for the first time ever.

"We want to show what a world without nature would look like because, in less than 50 years, human activity has resulted in wildlife populations plummeting by an average of 68 per cent - and with every part of nature that we extinguish, we lose another important link to human and planetary health," Felicity Glennie Holmes, executive director of communications and marketing at WWF International, explained (via Sky Sports).

"Today we're joining forces with some of the world's best-loved brands, from AS Roma to Hootsuite, to remove nature-related images from our logos to show how empty a #WorldWithoutNature would be. Globally, we need to reverse our direction and start restoring nature. And we need governments around the world to seize the opportunities this year to take action, so that we avert the risk of nature disappearing for good and our natural world thrives."

Although many clubs have made some efforts to become environmental sustainable in recent years, there is still plenty of progress to be made. The standard bearers for environmentalism in English football remain Forest Green Rovers, who recently attracted headlines by releasing a kit made entirely of recycled coffee grounds.