The World Wildlife Fund is distancing itself from an advertisement exploiting the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The image shows dozens of planes flying towards Lower Manhattan, with the tag line, “The Tsunami Killed 100 Times More People Than 9/11.”

While the ad has the appearance of one sanctioned by the Wildlife Fund, and has the group’s panda logo, the WWF says the ad was conceived by an outside Brazilian ad agency, and that it was immediately rejected.

In a statement, the WWF condemned the ad and says it is aggressively pursuing action to remove the image from websites.

A representative for the US headquarters of WWF said they had been unaware of the offensive poster until today.

“We strongly condemn both the message and the images portrayed,” said the WWF-US spokesman Steve Ertel when first asked about the advertisement.

Later, the organization issued an even stronger worded statement saying:

“WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication.  It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency seeking our business in Brazil. The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day,” the statement said.

For its part, the ad agency DDB also moved to distance itself.

“The ‘Tsunami’ ad for World Wildlife Fund Brasil was created by a team at DDB Brasil in December 2008. The team in question is no longer with the Agency. DDB Brasil apologizes to anyone who was offended or affected by the ad.  It should never have been made and it does not portray the philosophy of the agency.”