Animals like lions, tigers, and sharks are all popular sports mascots. But in real life, most of these iconic animals are in danger of becoming extinct. Ugo Arbieu, an ecologist at Paris-Saclay University in France, found more than 700 professional teams (in 10 sports across 50 countries) that are named after or have animals as mascots. This inspired Arbieu to launch the Wild League, an initiative that aims to involve sports teams and fans in the fight to protect the species they love.
Arbieu hopes the effort will raise awareness about loss of biodiversity, or variety of life on Earth. “There are probably more lions on banners at some football games than there are in the wild,” says Arbieu. But if just 0.1 percent of ticket sales were donated from nine of the biggest sports leagues in one year, he says, it would raise $3.6 million to help animals.