Lacoste drops crocodile logo to support Arizona’s California Condor and others

PHOENIX — Lacoste, the French clothing retailer, ditched its iconic crocodile logo for a limited time to support 10 threatened species of animals from around the globe, including the Arizona’s California condor.

Lacoste partnered with Save our Species to produce 1,775 polo shirts that featured the 10 animals in place of their crocodile logo.

Save our Species is a conservation group and a branch of the International Union for Conservation of Nature that is aimed at ensuring the long-term survival of threatened species and their habitats.

The animals included in the promotion were: the vaquita, the Burmese roofed turtle, the northern sportive lemur, the Javan rhino, the cao-vit Gibbon, the kakapo, the saola, the Sumatran tiger, the Anegada ground iguana and California condor, which inhabits Arizona.

The number of polos produced for each animal corresponded to the number of animals remaining in the wild. For example, only 231 California condor shirts were produced.

The shirts were announced in late February and have since sold out.

According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, California condors are the largest flying land bird in North America and have been listed on the endangered list since 1967. They were first reintroduced into Arizona in 1997.

According to the department, only 22 California condors were left in the world in 1982.