Nathan R. Flesness

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this 7th SEAZA Conference and present this paper.

Zoos in modernizing societies face many challenges in keeping up with rising standards and expectations. Of course, zoos all over the world are being challenged to keep up with rapidly changing visitor and societal expectations of the way animals should be exhibited and cared for.

Visitors to zoos want to have fun when they come. But they also want to feel good about coming - to feel good because they and their children go home more interested in and more caring about the animals they were able to see. When we are successful, they have a good time, they know more, they care more, and they then expect more from their zoo! Having learned to care more about animals, they are likely to take an increased interest in how we care for them, as well as how their wild homes and habitats are cared for and preserved.

Therefore, improving our animal management and animal care is an essential part of attracting the visits and support of a more and more sophisticated public.

Modern animal management is based on sound records. The live animals in your collections are the unique resource that attracts your visitors. Management of this living collection resource requires information. Animal management decisions should be driven by basic information on the animals being managed. Also, increasing international and national regulations on animal transactions require sound and credible records. Increasing international cooperation among zoos and among zoo regions also requires sound and credible records. Whether seen in dollar terms or other ways, your live collection of animals is your key resource. Records tell you what you have. Animals without records, like paintings or other valuable objects, are increasingly likely to be worth less, or worthless.

Quality animal records are the basis for the most modern zoo programs, such as cooperative breeding programs. These programs are based on studbooks. The studbooks trace each specimen back to the wild, through as many generations and zoos as required. It is not always understood that the studbooks are only possible if each zoo keeps quality specimen records. It is the zoo specimen records that are assembled into the studbook. If the records do not already exist, the studbook is not possible - and hence cooperative breeding programs are crippled.

There is another unusual issue about animal records. They need to be in place long before you think you need them. For most kinds of modern information systems being implemented in modernizing institutions, better accounting, etc., you can set them up when you need them. But animal records are different. They have time value, almost like financial investments. Each animal your zoo acquires, which is not documented, may reduce the value of your collection at a later date. If today’s animal is not documented, tomorrow’s offspring will not have a known pedigree. The return on the investment in records is longer-term, but it is a very good return.

There are other returns on sound modern animal records. Good veterinary records reduce losses of animals due to disease, by tracking parasites and treatments, by keeping vaccinations on schedule, by tracking optimal doses for immobilization drugs and individual animal sensitivities, and by reminding veterinary staff of follow-up work needed. Good veterinary records mean better animal health, which is not only better for the animals but better for your zoo in many ways.

ISIS, the International Species Information System, was set up 24 years ago to help zoos keep and use records to improve management. Initially this was through standard paper zoo records, and a large computer used by ISIS. By 1985, more than 1,000,000 such paper records had been created by member zoos. However, these paper records within the zoo were cumbersome for management use. In that year ISIS released it first PC animal records software package, ARKS. ARKS helps you keep specimen records, and prints out many useful reports whenever you need them.

Today, 495 zoos in over 50 countries use ISIS’ ARKS for basic animal records. Also developed over the last dozen years were SPARKS - a studbooks software package, MedARKS, a veterinary records package, and (by ARAZPA) REGASP, a collection planning package. Thousands of zoo staff worldwide now use these systems for modernized management based on records, and they play a very significant role in the foundation of the exploding number of studbooks and cooperative breeding programs in zoos worldwide.

ARKS, SPARKS, MedARKS, and REGASP have all been DOS based software. The worldwide acceptance of Windows, especially Windows 95, has changed the computer world. The young staff you hire are often already familiar with Windows 95 software, and are less and less likely to have any knowledge, or interest, in the older and more primitive DOS computer world. It is therefore time to replace all these PC animal management tools.

This is quite an effort. Roughly 20 person-years of programming work were invested in the suit of DOS software. It is taking more time to rebuild then we would have liked. However, we are committed to releasing ARKS for Windows 95/98 by August 1998 - 10 months time.

The other systems, SPARKS, MedARKS, and REGASP, will follow. However, they will not any longer be separate systems. Instead, we are merging them into a single unified collection management system - modern collection management for the modern world. ARKS for Windows is therefore jut the first release of a system that will grow stepwise to replace all these old DOS products. This is both more cost-effective for us to develop, and easier for your staff to use.

There will of course be computerized conversion of existing data into the new software, so nothing will be lost. There are also some new opportunities. Windows 95 finally supports general ability to translate software. We are going to considerable effort to make it possible to translate the new ARKs for Windows and the folloing components of the new Collection Management System, into all human languages.

We are developing and designing this system in public. The design discussion is being carried out on the Internet, via a discussion Forum on the World Wide Web. This is a modern approach, which allows us to invite anyone with access to be involved in our international design effort. Any ISIS member institution can take part by choosing Files and Forums, then the Registrar Forum, from the ISIS web page at www.worldzoo.org.

We are using other modern tools to solve zoo animal management problems. For one example, until 2-3 years ago, it was relatively difficult for your zoo, or any other zoo, to get convenient access to all the specimen data held at ISIS, or compiled in studbooks. Today, ISIS publishes two CD-ROMs, one with all ISIS data (more than 1,000,000 specimens), and one with all contributed studbooks (over 260).

Also, we are using the Internet and the Web more and more. For example, providing a good level of veterinary care to your animal collection means that your veterinary staff or consultants must be ready to apply expertise to problems with hundreds, or even thousands, of different species. No single veterinarian can hope to have the knowledge or experience relevant to such a diversity of animal species. However, using the ISIS International Veterinary Forum on the world wide web, a zoo veterinarian can discuss elephant foot problems, intestinal blockage in rhinos, etc., with his or her colleagues around the world, and hope to get an answer to vital questions in only hours - time enough to help the patient!

We have plans to make all of our services more and more Web based. We simply must use all of the cost-effective modern information tools to help you be the best possible modern zoo.