Saving snails

Educational animation about the collaborative Partula snail conservation project

  • Role: animation director
  • Stakeholder: Bristol Zoological Society
  • Sectors: charity (conservation and education)
  • Deliverables: short animated video

The Partula snail conservation project is a collaborative effort of zoos across the world to save Polynesian tree snails (their scientific name is 'Partula') from extinction. Saving Snails is a short animation that helps engage zoo visitors with the project.

  • Animation
  • Character design
  • Compositing
  • Illustration
  • Storyboarding

Most Partula species are either Critically Endangered or Extinct in the Wild, and many species already lost, after the introduction of the carnivorous Rosy Wolfsnail to the Pacific Islands, the native home of Partula snails.

Bristol Zoological Society is part of a network of zoos that breed Partula snails in preparation for their reintroduction and monitored re-release into their native habitats.

The zoo's conservation and education team were looking for a way to tell visitors about the project, but engaging zoo visitors with little brown gastropods is a challenge, so I was tasked with developing a short animation that tells the snails’ complex conservation story in a simple and fun way.

The finished animation runs on a loop at the zoo's on-site Partula breeding centre, and it has also been shared at educational events of partner zoos such as the Zoological Society of London.

  • Character designs for Partula snail as outline sketch and final fully coloured version
  • The Partula snail conservation plan steps 1 (document remaining species) and 2 (bring specimen of species into secure breeding centres in participating zoos)
  • Animation still showing African land snail and Rosy Wolfsnail with a human hand pointing at the African land snail that is eating crops
  • Animation still showing a member of staff looking after a group of little Partula snails in a glass tank inside the zoo Partula breeding room
  • Photographs of the actual Partula snails and the Partula breeding room inside the Invertebrate house at Bristol Zoo
  • Background designs of glass tank and related husbandry props such as thermometer, sprayer, mortar and pestle as well as a plane ticket from Bristol to Raiatea, French Polynesia