EAZA Accreditation

How ZIMS can help make it easier!
 

The Importance of Species360 membership and the use of ZIMS (Zoological Information Management System) is stressed in many EAZA documents.

• The EAZA Accreditation Manual states that it is an obligation of an EAZA member to be a Species360 member
• The EAZA Standards for the Accommodation and Care of Animals in Zoos and Aquaria mentions that records are to be kept using ZIMS or another accepted records system that is easily able to share data with ZIMS
• The EAZA Membership Manual even mentions that a warning can be given by the EEP Committee or the Membership and Ethics Committee for non-participation in ZIMS or not updating ZIMS in the preceding six months.

But did you know that in addition to capturing your animal data ZIMS can actually help you prepare your EAZA Accreditation Application and can be a major help during the Site Visit?

Use the links below to quickly navigate this document.

Updated March 25

Preparing the Application

  General Information – Staff

  Animal Care – Veterinary Care/Nutrition

  Animal Care – Accommodation/Contact with Animals

  Species360 Membership

  Zoological Collection

  Safety and Security

  Conservation and Sustainability

  Research

During the Site Visit

  Animal Care

  Zoological Collection

  Safety and Security

  Conservation

Preparing the Application

General Information – Staff

Questions 19 and 20 : Please indicate the number of permanent (19)/seasonal (20) staff

employed by your institution in each category

• Use the Staff grid under My Institution. You can easily search by Job Types such as Curator, Educator, Horticulturist, Registrar, Veterinarian and Zookeeper/Aquarist (that’s just a few of the Job Types available).

Animal Care – Veterinary Care/Nutrition

Question 29:  Are the condition and health of all animals in your collection checked every day by appropriate staff?

• Use the Husbandry Log Template to capture this information. If you set up Templates by Team or work string and use the checkbox option (Yes or No) your Staff can quickly capture who did a health check. The Care and Welfare module can also be used to capture this information. Both the Husbandry Log Templates and the Care and Welfare module are optimized to work on mobile devices, making it easy to capture the information during the morning rounds.

Question 32: Does your institution undertake routine examination, including checks on parasites and zoonotic diseases and a programme for preventive medicine, including vaccination?

• Using the ZIMS Medical module you can find all Samples taken and Prescriptions/Treatments given.

Question 33: Are antidotes to potentially toxic veterinary products kept either at your institution or at the local hospital?

• This information could be recorded in the Pharmacy Inventory for easy retrieval.

Question 35: Is chemical equipment used for sedation / anaesthesia kept on premises?

• This question could also be answered using the Pharmacy Inventory.

Question 37: Is a post-mortem examination (necropsy) generally performed on every vertebrate mortality?

• The Transaction Report could be run for Deaths at the Vertebrata level and compared with the Necropsy records at the Vertebrata level to provide this information.

Question 38: Are records of all performed post-mortem examinations kept on file by your institution or the consulting veterinarian?

• ZIMS captures all the Necropsy records and is easily searchable.

Animal Care – Accommodation / Contact with Animals

Question 42 : Does your institution provide animals with environmental and behavioral enrichment?

• The Enrichment module captures all the Enrichment Item used and what animals they are assigned to. The Enrichment Sessions capture the animal’s response to the Enrichment.

Species360 Membership

Question 48 : Is your institution a member of Species360?

• Yes!!!

Question 49: Species360 Mnemonic and Number

• This information can be found in the Institution Basic Info grid under My Institution.

Question 50: What percentage of your animal collection is registered with Species360?

• Hopefully you can say 100%. If not, compare your ZIMS inventory with your total inventory count.

Question 51 : Are all of your institution’s holdings of endangered, CITES I, EEP and ESB species are registered with Species360?

• Run an Inventory Detail Report and select CITES I filter.
• Use the Global Studbook search tool. In the search form insert your institution mnemonic in the Taxonomy held by field and ‘EAZA’ in the scope field. Leave other fields blank and click Search. When cross-referenced with the inventory detail you can see how many of each species are held at your institution.
• If you use the Management Plan grid you can capture all the EEP and ESB animals.

Question 52 : Do you regularly submit your data to Species360?

• You can use the Species360 Member Data Currentness map found in Institution > Data Management to see if you entered data recently, or at least within the month. In addition, you can reference the Staff Transactions Statistics in My Institution > Institution Statistics tab for transactions entered by specific Staff during the past month.

Zoological Collection

Question 56 : How many species do you hold in your institution?

• Because this is asking only for species physically at your institution, run a Detailed Inventory Report for a single date (probably the date you submit the application) and check Include Animals Owned and Onsite and Include Groups. Tally the Institution Inventory Taxonomic Summary display at the end. Keep in mind this will capture any species with group counts that are 0.0.0 so you may want Close Out those records first.

Question 57 : How often are records brought up-to-date?

• My Institution > Institution Statistics > Staff Transactions Statistics will display who has entered data in the last 1 day, last 7 days, last 15 days and last 30 days.

Question 58: Are duplicates of the animal records stored in a separate location?

• The ZIMS database is hosted at a secure facility. ZIMS data is backed-up at multiple locations and stored on a fault tolerant, expandable storage area network, featuring RAID 5 disk array with hot swappable spare drives. Data changes are backed up every six hours and a full database backup is performed weekly. The six-hour backups are stored within the same facility, and the weekly backups are moved to a different facility in a different state (over 400 miles apart). The monthly backups are kept indefinitely.

Question 59 : Does your institution use a reliable individual animal identification system?

• An easy way to see what identifiers are being used is to run an Advanced Animal Search for your Current Animals and customize the columns to include physical Identifiers. Logical Identifiers cannot be considered reliable because they cannot be seen and are easily confused.

Question 63: Are any of the animals in your collection a part of a training and/or behavioural display programme?

• Do an open search for Training Definitions. All the behaviours being trained will display with a count of number of animals being trained that behavior. The animal count is a hyperlink to a results grid where you can open the individual record and view the Sessions.

Safety and Security

Question 69: Have there been any major animal escapes in the last five years requiring tranquilisation or medical treatment?

• Run a Transaction Report > Dispositions > Missing > Escape report for the past five years and open any records found to view details. If an animal escapes its enclosure but remains within facility grounds, that may have been recorded in a Note, so you can also use a Note Retrieval Report.

Conservation and Sustainability

Question 78: Does your institution participate in one or more EEPs?

• Use the Global Studbook search tool. In the search form insert your institution mnemonic in the Taxonomy held by field and ‘EAZA’ in the scope field. Leave other fields blank and click Search.

Question 79: Which species at your institution are included in national and/or international studbook?

• For international - Use the Global Studbook search tool. In the search form insert your institution mnemonic in the Taxonomy held by field and ‘WAZA’ in the scope field. Leave other fields blank and click Search.
• For National - Use the Global Studbook search tool. In the search form insert your institution mnemonic in the Taxonomy held by field and your national accreditation/association (i.e. BIAZA) in the scope field (the association will only be rcognised in the scope if they manage national studbooks). Leave other fields blank and click Search.

Research

Question 92 : Did your institution carry out or support scientific research projects during the last three years?

and

Question 94 : Are the results of research projects published or otherwise disseminated to the professional and scientific community?

• In addition to your own or cooperative research activities, your data, unless everything is in a Local Collection, is contributing to the ZIMS global database that is used by theSpecies360 Conservation Science Alliance team. Follow this link to learn more on programs and publications driven by ZIMS users aggregated data.

During the Site Visit

Part 3 - Animal Care

General Animal Welfare

• Question 30: Does the institution have a proactive animal welfare policy?
  • Although not a Policy in itself, showing them all the data that you have collected using the Care and Welfare module will confirm that you are following your Policy.

Veterinary Care

• Question 35: Does the institution maintain up-to-date records on the health of the collection? Does the institution utilize ZIMS Medical?
  • Open the Medical module and show them all your records.
• Question 38: Does the institution utilise controlled animal drugs?

and

• Question 39: Are controlled animal drugs safely kept under lock and key with limited access by authorized persons only?
  • Open the Pharmacy Inventory and do a search for all your Regulated Drugs, then show them where they all are safely stored.
• Question 43: Does the institution regularly perform necropsies? Are these results analysed by a veterinary professional (either internal or external personnel) to evaluate trends?
  • Do a search for Necropsies for the past year. Open some records if requested.
  • If Relevant Death information is recorded, information can be retrieved Through Medical Resources > Morbidity and Mortality analysis. Select Relevant death information analysis, set filter to ‘My institution’ and set Death date range to run report. This can assist vets in identifying trends by taxon or in the collection.

Animal Enclosures

• Question 57: Do the water quality methods and controls programme appear to be adequate for the aquatic exhibits?
  • Show them the Measurement Range Templates you have created. Open an aquatic enclosure > Water Quality grid and show them how you have set up email notifications for out-of-range measurements.

Enrichment and Equipment

• Question 58: Is species appropriate enrichment built into the day to day animal care and is there evidence that it is taking place?
  • Open the Enrichment grid for an animal. Show them the Enrichment Items assigned and the Sessions recorded.
• Question 59 Is Enrichment evaluated for success?
  • Select View/Edit in the Sessions column and show them the Rating column entries.
• Question 61: Do enrichment programmes include a range of Enrichment Categories?
  • Do an open search for your Enrichment Items and show them the various Categories.

Training

• Question 65: Is there an animal training programme at the facility? If Yes, are the training sessions tracked for success?
  • Open the Training grid for an animal and select to View/Edit Sessions. Show them the Rating column.
• Question 67: Does the animal training promote positive animal welfare through cognitive stimulation, positive social interaction, aid in husbandry or health checks?
  • Do an open ended search for Training Definitions module and show them the various Descriptions.

Nutrition

• Question 74: Is food and drink provided in such a way that: 1) It meets the needs of the animal (e.g. time and frequency of feeding, 2) It meets the behavioral needs (e.g. placement)?
  • Open a Feed Log record for an animal. Show the times fed and Feeding Method for various types of food.

Visitors & Contact with Animals

• Question 76 1) Are they (animals used directly as part of a visitor contact/educational programme) housed in a designated education area?
  • Show your Enclosure Tree set up with separate area (s) for education animals. Open an Enclosure and view the Occupants.

Part 4 - Zoological Collection

Animal Records

• Question 80: Is the institution using ZIMS? Are records of all animals entered into ZIMS?
  • You could show an Inventory Report that confirms all animals are recorded in ZIMS.
• Question 80 continued: Are all EEP and ESB species maintained by the institution registered in ZIMS?
  • Use the Global Studbook search tool. In the search form insert your institution mnemonic in the Taxonomy held by field and ‘EAZA’ in the scope field. Leave other fields blank and click Search. When cross-referenced with the inventory summary report you can see how many of each species are held at your institution.
  • Alternatively, if you use the Management Plan grid it would be easy to run a search and bring them all up to show.

• Question 81: Do the records provide adequate information to allow for behavioral notes, tracking health trends and breeding success
  • A walk through of some Husbandry and Medical records should provide them with this information.
• Question 83: Are duplicate records (including permits, etc.) stored in an appropriate separate location? (Back-up server, off site hard drive, trusted cloud storage, etc.)

• For any data recorded in ZIMS; the ZIMS database is hosted at a secure facility. ZIMS data is backed-up at multiple locations and stored on a fault tolerant, expandable storage area network, featuring RAID 5 disk array with hot swappable spare drives. Data changes are backed up every six hours and a full database backup is performed weekly. The six-hour backups are stored within the same facility, and the weekly backups are moved to a different facility in a different state (over 400 miles apart). The monthly backups are kept indefinitely.

• Question 84: Are animal identification methods appropriate and implemented?
  • An easy way to show this would be to perform a search for Current animals and customize the columns to display the Identifier types that are commonly used at your facility. You could also open a record and view any images attached, as well as the Identifier grid.

Acquisition, Exchange and Trasnport

• Question 86: Do the institution’s animal acquisitions and dispositions fully comply with EAZA Standards?

• Use the Transaction Report to create a list of all acquisitions and dispositions to/from your institution within a set time range, which can be cross referenced with EAZA standards.

Part 5 - Safety and Security

Enclosure, Barriers and Exits

• Question 91: Are the enclosure barriers designed and well maintained in order to contain animals within their enclosures?
  • Open an Enclosures record and show how dimensions, barriers and maintenance are captured.

Part 6 - Conservation

• Question 127: Does the institution engage in and/or support conservation endeavors…. Various selections include “Conservation of Species and populations (in situ or ex situ)” and “Conservation Research.”
• As a supplement to other conservation activities, you can also add that by contributing your data to the ZIMS database you are supporting conservation efforts through the Species360 Conservation Science Alliance team. Follow this link to learn more on programs and publications driven by ZIMS users aggregated data.