Jaguar (
Panthera onca)
Care Manual
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Association of Zoos and Aquariums
the colony counts as one animal. When a section of the coral breaks off, you accession that
new piece as a new colony.
•
A self-sustaining, breeding group of small rodents or insects.
Your institution has a large number of Cairo spiny mice. No
daily count is made, though births
and deaths increase and decrease the count. A census is taken periodically, and the new
count is recorded by sex and life stage. Exact counts are made whenever possible – for
example, when the group is moved to a new enclosure.
•
Young born to several females of the same species or subspecies and raised together without
means of identifying which offspring were born to which mother.
A flock of 3.6 peafowl raise 25 chicks this year. Identity of the hens incubating each nest,
hatch dates, and number of chicks hatched from each nest can be determined and recorded.
However, unless the chicks are
caught and banded at hatching, once the mothers and chicks
join the main flock, it is no longer possible to tell which chicks belong to which females. All
chicks in the flock have the same possible parents: all the peacocks and those peahens that
incubated the nests. The chicks are accessioned as a group and are split out only when they
are banded or tagged (and are thus individually identifiable).
•
Historical records for a species or subspecies for which there is insufficient information to attribute
events to specific individuals.
Some of your historical records are found as simple lists of events. Though there are dates
for all transactions, and maybe even specified vendors or recipients for those events, you
cannot create individual records for any of these animals without additional information: there
is nothing connecting any specific individual to both acquisition and disposition information. If
additional information is uncovered that makes this connection, then
that individual can be
removed from the group accession and given an individual record.
Managing Group Records
Maintaining Group Records - As with individual records, group records should also be maintained and
updated. Addition of animals through births or transactions such as loans, purchases, donations, or trades
are entered as acquisitions. Subtraction of animals through deaths or transactions such as loans, sales,
donations, or trades are entered as dispositions.
Weights and lengths can be entered into a group record even if that data cannot be attributed to a specific
individual. This information is still useful in describing the overall condition of group members, although
care should be given to describe the animal that the measurement came from. For example, is the animal
a juvenile or a breeding adult?
Is it healthy, or sickly? Alternatively, average and/or median
measurements can be entered into the record to give an indication of what size a "normal" individual
might be. In this case, notes should include the maximum and minimum measurements, and how many
animals were measured to calculate the average or median.
Censuses - Groups should be censused at regular intervals - ideally, no longer than one inter-birth
interval. Institutions should establish and follow a census schedule for each group. An inventory must be
done at least once yearly (AZA Accreditation Standard 1.4.1) but the frequency at which a group is
censused depends on species biology, husbandry protocols, and animal welfare. For species in which
births/hatches and deaths tend to go undetected, or for species that have high fecundity and mortality
(which makes counting every animal very difficult or impossible), census data should be obtained more
frequently than for species with longer inter-birth intervals. These more frequent censuses should not be
undertaken when intrusion on the group has a negative effect on
the welfare of the group, e.g., disruption
of maternal care.
Censuses should provide as much detail as possible by recording numbers in distinctive life stages (such
as newborn, immature, adult) and/or sex ratio (such as male, female, unknown/undetermined). If the
census count is estimated, the estimation method and (when possible) the accuracy of the estimate
should be included. When updating the sex ratio, who sexed the animals and how they were sexed
should also be recorded.
Jaguar (
Panthera onca)
Care Manual
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Association of Zoos and Aquariums
Splitting And Combining (Merging) Groups - Splitting animals from groups and combining groups together
are realities of group management. Animals may be removed to create additional groups, or perhaps
new animals are received from another institution. When new groups are created, new group
records also
need to be created. However, if the entire group moves to a new location (such as a different tank), it
retains the same accession number, and notation of the change in location is made.
When a single group is split into two or more groups, one of the new groups keeps the original accession
number and the others are assigned new accession numbers. This is also true if a portion of a group is
sent to another institution: the subgroup making the transfer must have an accession number distinct
from that of the main group. The accession number(s) for the new group(s) should follow institutional
procedures for the assignment of new accession numbers. Note of the new group accession number(s)
should appear in the originating group record, and the new group accession record(s) should contain the
originating group number. The reason for the split should be entered into both the originating and new
group records.
When two or more groups combine to form a larger group, all but one of the groups are deaccessioned
and their counts brought to zero. Notes in all the group records should indicate why the
groups were
merged, as well as the accession numbers of all groups involved – both the closed (empty) groups and
the remaining group.
In all cases of splits and merges, the date of creation of the new record should be the same as the date of
removal from the previous group or individual. Detailed notes should explain the reasons for all splits and
merges.
Merging Individuals Into Groups and Splitting Individuals From Groups - Good husbandry dictates the use
of identification methods that allow animals to be tracked as individuals whenever possible (AZA
Accreditation Standard 1.4.3). Thus, most institutions initially accession newly-acquired animals as
individual animals with individual identifiers.
Despite the best intentions, individual identification sometimes becomes impossible. For example, birds in
large
aviaries lose their bands; small frogs in a large terrarium die and decompose without being noticed.
When individual identification of several of the animals in the group is lost and can’t be resolved in a
reasonable amount of time, it is best to move all potentially unidentifiable animals to a group record, by
either creating a new group or merging them into an existing group. As with splitting and merging groups,
the group record should contain the identities of the originating individuals and the individual records
should show the new group identity. If the animals in the group ever become individually identifiable
again, they can be split back to individual records to better capture demographic information. If this
occurs, new accession numbers are generally needed for the new individual records since it is rarely
possible to know which old individual record would apply to the newly identifiable group member.
Conversely, if one or more group
members become identifiable, for example, the previously unbanded
young of the year are caught up and banded, they should be split from the group record and given
individual accessions. The group record should include the individual numbers assigned, and the records
of all individuals should show the number of the originating group. In the case of new individual records,
information particular to the animal being given the individual record (if known) should be transferred to
the individual record. This includes birth date, origin, parent identification, etc. As in the cases of splitting
and merging groups, the date of creation of the new record is the same as the date of removal from the
previous group or individual, and detailed notes should explain the reasons for all changes in accession
type.
Transfers Between Institutions - When accessioning a number of animals that were received from another
institution, the new animals should be accessioned using the same type of record that the sending
institution used, regardless of how the animals will ultimately be managed. If a group is received but the
members will be managed as individuals, they should be accessioned as a group first, then split out as
individuals. Similarly, if a number of individuals are received but the plan is to manage them as a group,
they should
be accessioned as individuals, then merged into a group. Although this is an extra step in the
accession process, it allows the records from both institutions to more seamlessly link.