Project Update: Accessible Captions for Endangered Species Revenge

Endangered Species Revenge takes an unexpected approach to wildlife conservation: blending humor with urgent wildlife protection. Beneath their wit and playful characters sits a serious mission to fund critical conservation work around the world.

Avidano Digital recently partnered with ESR to modernize their WordPress website and digital tools. But some of the most important work happened behind the scenes: making their videos more accessible to Deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

The problem

ESR's wildlife conservation videos had inconsistent captioning. Some videos had captions “burned-in” directly to the video, meaning the captions are permanently part of the video image and cannot be turned off or translated. Other videos had no captions. 

While burned-in captions look fine on the surface, they do not support language translation. They are also difficult to read on mobile screens. In addition, using burned-in captions resulted in duplicate captions on YouTube, as YouTube’s auto-generated captions appeared alongside the already visible burned-in captions, leading to confusion.

The Solution: editable, flexible captions

Previously embedded captions were removed and replaced with fully editable closed captions. Unlike burned-in captions, closed captions can be turned on or off, translated, and updated after a video is published. 

Captions were reviewed and refined within YouTube Studio for accuracy and timing, then exported and integrated into a custom on-site video player.

The result is a flexible captioning system that supports translation, long-term updates, and an accessible viewing experience. Finalized captions are now seamlessly displayed within each project's dedicated video environment.

When organizations like ESR remove barriers to their storytelling, more people can connect with their causes. For ESR, that means more support for protecting endangered species worldwide.

For more information about video captioning best practices, visit WebAIM's multimedia accessibility guide.