The Wildlife Sanctuary You Can Visit from Anywhere | Maya Higa | TED

00:04So my mission is to use the internet to build our next generation of conservationists. And I have not been doing this for all that long, OK. I was born in 1998, so I will get that out of the way right off the bat. But I'll tell you guys how I got started.

00:17I grew up on a farm, and I always loved animals. So we had rabbits and horses and chickens and, you name it, we had it, and I loved it. Then when I was 18 and in college, naturally, I got a job as a zookeeper. I’d put on this safari outfit, and I would bring animals like kangaroos and lemurs to schools and birthday parties to teach kids about wildlife.

00:39It's a pretty cool job. It was really awesome. So then one night after work, I met some friends online who were live streaming themselves playing video games on Twitch, and I had no idea what that meant. But I learned that I could broadcast myself live on this website, doing whatever I wanted.

00:54So I could cook, or I could sing, or I could play video games. And if people enjoyed watching it, they would send me tips. So cash. Like, actual real money. And as a college student, that's pretty freakin' sweet. So I started streaming to about ten viewers at a time almost every day.

01:14Then one night after one of these live streams, I got a call from a zookeeper friend about this red-tailed hawk who had been hit by a car, and he needed help. So we brought Bean, that's what we called him, home to my college house. And I started to rehabilitate him in my backyard.

01:31So then one night, I'm live streaming, I'm cooking, I'm talking about this new hawk in my backyard. And one of my viewers didn't believe me. They didn't believe that I had a bird in my backyard. And I could not have that. So I put my falconry glove on, and I brought the bird inside to show them, of course, because I have a problem.

01:50And one of the people watching this stream made a short video of this moment, and they shared it on Reddit, and it went viral. My viewership shot up overnight, and I started live-streaming Bean's rehabilitation process. So I would call him from his perch to my glove, and the people watching my stream started becoming as invested as I was in his recovery.

02:11It was like they were doing it with me, sort of, which was the coolest thing that I've ever done. And then eventually, because I was reaching so many people with Bean's story, the zoo that I worked at started allowing me to bring animals like cockatoos and reptiles home to present on my live stream.

02:27(Laughter) So suddenly, somehow, I had turned this zoo outreach job that I had into a work-from-home situation, right? Which is awesome. But instead of reaching 20 kids at a time in a classroom, I was reaching thousands of people at a time all over the world.

02:46So this was when it really clicked for me, right? I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, but I wanted to do it at a much, much larger scale. Two years later, at 22 years old, I came up with a plan. The vision was to build an animal sanctuary that nobody visits -- or at least not in person.

03:04We would rescue animals and build huge animal enclosures, and we would live stream conservation education programs online so people could fall in love with our animals the way that they fell in love with Bean, that bird. Our animals would be able to reach millions and millions of people -- without having to meet a single one of them in person.

03:24And then, of course, I would fundraise all of the capital to do all of these things and build this entire facility in one single live stream, which is the craziest idea that I've ever had. But this is crazier: it worked somehow. So I'm live streaming one day and there's some -- Oh, thank you.

03:42(Applause) I'll take the applause, thank you so much. So I’m live streaming one day, and someone in my live chat said, “Maya, if we raise $500,000, would you shave your head on stream?" And I said, “Yeah, duh.” Because who wouldn't do that?

04:00Who in their right mind wouldn't do that? Apparently that was pretty motivating, though, because over the course of a 21-hour-long live stream, we fundraised $573,000. (Cheers and applause) To build the sanctuary. So I bought some land in Austin, Texas, started building animal enclosures, and I started growing my hair back -- that takes about two years, in case anyone was curious.

04:24(Laughter) These screens are huge. That is a huge picture of me bald in front of a lot of people. OK, so next up was rescuing animals. Appa and Momo are marmosets. They're these very tiny, very, very charming New World monkeys. Someone originally bought them as pets online, but then, after years of inadequate care, they were brought to us for rehabilitation.

04:48So they now live at Alveus to help teach people about the exploitation of primates in the pet trade and about the importance of conserving their rainforest habitats, too. They also have a little iPad to play games on now. It's very, very cute.

05:02Finn is an American red fox who was confiscated from the illegal pet trade in California, so he and his best friend Reed now live at Alveus to help teach people about the nightmare that is the fur trade, helping to build a new generation of fur-free consumers.

05:17Then there's Winnie the Moo. (Laughter) She's a cow. She was rescued from a beef operation in Oklahoma. She lives at Alveus to help teach people about commercial agriculture and how it impacts animal welfare and our planet. One way that viewers can support the sanctuary is by feeding Winnie treats.

05:33So a five-dollar donation made online results in treats being dispensed via this automated feeder. To date, that treat feeder has generated over $38,000 in funding for the sanctuary. Isn't that crazy? (Applause) That's a lot of treats. She's a very happy cow.

05:53(Laughter) Since 2019, through live streaming, I have raised over $7.5 million for conservation causes across the globe. (Applause) In 2025 alone, we reached over 250 million people with conservation education online. That's over 10 million classrooms, like the ones that I was bringing zoo animals to in college, just in the last year.

06:24Alveus is now home to rescued parrots and emus and monkeys and wolfdogs and more. And we have those 36 cameras that are live-streaming them 24 hours a day. But the beautiful thing about these live cameras is our animals are all blissfully unaware of the thousands of eyes on them at any given time.

06:44Not being open to the public means that our animals are less stressed by the unpredictable factors that come with people visiting. It also means that we've never had to divert any of our funding to guest experiences -- like gift shops and concession stands and parking lots.

06:59But one of the most positive benefits is we've developed one of the most accessible zoo models in the world. Anyone with an internet connection can visit our animals for free from their device from anywhere on the planet. And they do. Our online demographic, our online community, they range from about 17 to 28 years old.

07:20We are our nation’s new voters, new consumers and up-and-coming decision makers. We hold the future of this planet in our hands. But most of our online community didn't even join with an interest in environmentalism at all. They are just normal people, internet users who stumbled across our content in one of their many, many feeds.

07:40Alveus Sanctuary brings conservation to young people largely by meeting them where they already are, which is on social media. But before social media, TV programming was establishing the best examples of conservationists -- heroes like Steve Irwin and David Attenborough and Jane Goodall.

08:00These are obviously some of my personal heroes, probably some of yours as well, as they should be. These guys rock, right? But for most of us, it can be really hard to see ourselves in such legends. It leaves us feeling like that work is just a far-off dream that only other people achieve.

08:15But at Alveus, that dream doesn't feel so far off. For our viewers, Alveus is a dream that one of them achieved from within a space that they're already a part of. And they get to be a part of it all live. So we're just getting started. Our next step is taking this Alveus approach to the wild.

08:35We're building a new facility where we're going to breed endangered species at Alveus for reintroduction and release into the wild. We're starting with the recovery of critically endangered wolves. Our sincere hope is that people will fall in love with these wolves, the way that they fell in love with Bean, that bird from college.

08:52We hope that they'll care really deeply about these individuals, and then, in turn, about the wild places that we return them to. Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of brand-new conservationists fighting for wildlife and wild places, all doing it from their homes.

09:11So my mission is to use the internet to build our next generation of conservationists. And I think it's working. Thank you. (Cheers and applause)