Census of residents. Use the arrow keys to move between tiles.
Pico turns orange when the vet walks in. He has never once been wrong about it.
The journey · How they travelled
Every container here is empty. When it was found, it wasn't. These are real seizures, with their sources; our residents' stories are made up, these are not.
About 12,000animals in these eight cases.
01 2015
Water bottle
2015Port of Tanjung Perak, Surabaya, Indonesia
Twenty-three yellow-crested cockatoos and a green parrot, each pushed into a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, on a five-day voyage from eastern Indonesia. Eleven of the 24 birds died.
Mongabay, S. Saturi, 11 May 2015Read the report ↗
02 2017
Drain pipe
2017Eastern Indonesia
41 white cockatoos and 84 eclectus parrots, squeezed into lengths of plastic pipe sealed at both ends with wire. Investigators believed they were bound for the Philippines.
AFP via Phys.org, 16 Nov 2017Read the report ↗
03 2024
Film canister
2024El Dorado Airport, Bogotá, Colombia
130 harlequin poison frogs, hidden in plastic film canisters in a passenger's luggage. Police found them dehydrated and stressed. Each can sell for up to $1,000.
NBC New York, 30 Jan 2024Read the report ↗
04 2013
Travel bag
2013Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok
54 ploughshare and 21 radiated tortoises in one bag on a luggage carousel, flown in from Madagascar. TRAFFIC estimated the bag held more than 10% of all ploughshare tortoises left in the wild.
TRAFFIC, 19 Mar 2013Read the report ↗
05 2023
Sock
2023International mail facility, Los Angeles
Eastern box turtles, bound in socks and taped so they couldn't move, in parcels labelled «almonds» and «chocolate cookies». The sender had shipped about 2,100 turtles to Hong Kong.
US Department of Justice, Mar 2025Read the report ↗
06 2025
Cake box
2025Cologne Bonn Airport, Germany
About 1,500 young tarantulas in small plastic tubs, packed into boxes for chocolate sponge cake and posted from Vietnam. Customs noticed the parcel didn't smell like cake.
The Washington Post (M. Javaid), via The Spokesman-Review, 15 Jul 2025Read the report ↗
07 2025
Sack
2025Off Berbera, Somaliland
Eleven cheetah cubs in sacks made to look like potatoes, on a small boat crossing towards the Arabian Peninsula. They were very malnourished; two died.
AP via Africanews, 2 Oct 2025Read the report ↗
08 2014
Plastic food tub
2014Jakarta and Papua, Indonesia
More than 8,000 baby pig-nosed turtles in suitcases full of plastic tubs, 15 to 20 to a tub, probably headed for China and Singapore.
AFP via Phys.org, Jan 2014Read the report ↗
The journey · The four rooms
Four rooms between a seizure and the rest of a life. Tahina is going through them now.
Tahina
Astrochelys radiata
Female~12 yearsHW-0417example
Day190
Weight4,630 g
01
Thirty days alone, on purpose. New arrivals can carry parasites and viruses nobody has a name for yet, so they get their own room, their own keeper and their own tools.
AI-generated image02
Dehydration first, then everything else: shells, beaks, eyes, broken skin, the damage of the trip. Most of it heals. Some of it gets managed for life.
03
Learning to be an animal again: finding food that isn't handed over, climbing, hiding, flying the length of an aviary. Some learn in weeks. Some never need to.
04
If the species, the place and the paperwork allow it, they go home, through a programme in their country of origin. If not, they stay here, for good, and that is not a failure.
The journey · Release day
AI-generated Poster and clip made with generative tools for this demo. No real release is shown here.
4 residents on their way home right now · 31 since we opened (example)
A release needs three things
When we don't know where an animal was taken from, it stays.
Atlas · The resolution of a species
Pick a species and press play: watch the picture lose its detail.Each picture below is drawn with one tile for every animal left in the wild.
2006–2008 · left in the wild
about
SourceSourceSources
Ploughshare tortoise example
The starting point is not an estimate: it is the «more than 80% lost» applied to today's 2,000. Kirana and Bayu are two of the ones that didn’t stay in the bottle.
The Red List still counts fewer than 50 mature birds, because a released bird only counts once it raises young of its own (IUCN 2021). Putih is learning.
Atlas · Good days
Nobody here is famous. These are the days we write down anyway.
Atlas · Behind the cute
Scroll through. Each post turns over to show what the camera didn't.example
T@tinyhands.dailytickle time!! he lifts his arms every time, he LOVES it #cute #slowloris
Pygmy slow lorisEN EndangeredCITES Appendix I
Venomin a gland inside the elbow
Arms up isn't "more, please". A slow loris raises its arms to reach the venom gland on the inside of its elbow: it is getting ready to bite. Pet lorises usually can't, because their teeth were cut out.
C@cafe.otter.dayscoffee with my favourite barista ☕ #ottercafe #otterlove
Asian small-clawed otterVU VulnerableCITES Appendix I
39+otters seized, 2016 and 2017
Japan's otter cafés and pet-otter stars on social media drove a smuggling boom from South-East Asia. At least 39 small-clawed otters, mostly young, were seized on their way to Japan in 2016 and 2017.
L@luxe.pets.officialsay hi to the new baby of the house #bigcat #exoticpets
CheetahVU VulnerableCITES Appendix I
3,600+cheetahs sold illegally, 2010 to 2019
More than 3,600 cheetahs were offered or sold illegally between 2010 and 2019, most of them cubs taken from the Horn of Africa for buyers in the Gulf. Only about one in ten was intercepted, and many die on the way. Dealers advertise them on social media.
About 12,000 animals named in the sources of eight real cases. Every one of them was somebody's cute video.
Open the atlasWatch them wild insteadAtlas · Field guide
35 species, 5 plates. Every one of them has at least one resident with a name.
Red ListIUCN CITES
No species on this plate match. Try another status.
No species on this plate match. Try another status.
No species on this plate match. Try another status.
No species on this plate match. Try another status.
No species on this plate match. Try another status.
Range withheld to protect it from collectors.
Where they live. Coloured by status. Data: GBIF.org occurrence records, wild only; five ranges withheld to protect them.GBIF Natural Earth
Brighter tiles hold more species; rings mark ranges of three tiles or fewer. Far-off dots are real records too: escaped animals and introduced groups.
6Bali myna23 cm · standing
5Sun parakeet30 cm · beak to tail
2Yellow-crested cockatoo33 cm · beak to tail
4Grey parrot33 cm · beak to tail
3Moluccan cockatoo50 cm · beak to tail
7Victoria crowned pigeon76 cm · head to tail
1Hyacinth macaw100 cm · beak to tail
8Shoebill140 cm · standing
13Electric blue geckoup to 9 cm · head to tail
9Panther chameleonup to 23 cm · head to tail
10Radiated tortoiseup to 40 cm · shell
14Chinese crocodile lizardmales 41 cm · head to tail
11Ploughshare tortoisemales up to 49 cm · shell
12Pig-nosed turtleup to 50 cm · shell
15Blue tree monitormales up to 107 cm · head to tail
16Green tree pythonaverage 150 cm · head to tail
18Golden mantella3.2 cm · body
19Dyeing poison frogfemales 4.5 cm · body
17Golden poison frog4.7 cm · average; females up to 5.5 cm
21Luristan newtup to 14 cm · head to tail
20Axolotlaverage 23 cm · head to tail
26Pygmy slow lorisup to 25 cm · head and body
23Fennec fox40 cm · head and body
27Ring-tailed lemur46 cm · head and body
29Lar gibbonup to 58 cm · head and body
25Asian small-clawed otterup to 61 cm · head to tail
22Red panda62 cm · head and body
24White-bellied pangolinaverage 79 cm · head to tail
28Cheetahadult 150 cm · head and body
30Orchid mantisfemale 7 cm · body
35Banggai cardinalfishup to 8.6 cm · body
33Rajah Brooke's birdwingabout 17 cm · wingspan
31Peacock tarantulaabout 20 cm · leg span
32Emperor scorpion20 cm · body
34Asian arowanaup to 90 cm · standard length
Drawn by eye, not to scale. Click a specimen for its dossier.
Hold a bank card to the screen and drag the edge to match.
Visit · Come and see them
Guided visits on Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00 and 15:00, groups of 12. No flash, no touching, no feeding: the animals don't perform, and that's the point.
Volunteers from 18, at least one morning a week for six months. Mostly cleaning, chopping and carrying. Very little cuddling, because there is none.
Leave something in your will and a resident who isn't born yet will have a room.
Example address
Via degli Esempi 0, 00000 Nowhere (example)
+00 000 000 0000 (example)
No. Here's why. A parrot can live 60 years, needs a flock and screams for a living. Most of ours came from homes that loved them and couldn't cope. Sponsor one instead: it stays here, with its kind.
No. Handling stresses wild animals, and every photo of a person holding an exotic pet makes the next one easier to sell.
Because release needs three things: a species that can survive, a place that's safe, and a country that will take them back. When we don't know where an animal was taken from, it stays.
Food, vets, heating and the paperwork that sends animals home. (In this demo, nowhere: no money is taken.)
The species and their stories in the wild are real, with sources. Halfway Wild, its residents, IDs and seizures are fictional: this is a demo site by Loop Studio.
Say no, and report it to your national wildlife authority or customs. Online listings can be reported on the platform.
Sponsor
Choose a resident and a monthly amount. You'll get your own tile: theirs, glazed in their colour, with your name next to it.
Every tile is someone.
