Dedicated rangers needed patience, invention and tasty treats to get the measure of all creatures great and small at Yorkshire Wildlife Park’s annual audit.
Each of the hundreds of animals, from tiny meerkats to Eastern Black Rhinos and Giraffes, has to be counted and have their vital statistics recorded as part of a national monitoring and conservation programme.
Coaxing them onto scales and to stay still long enough to get the tape measure in place took a weekend of innovation and hard work as the animals range from tiny primates weighing ounces to polar bears at 600kgs and the park’s three Eastern Black Rhinos that weight in at 1,350kgs.
“We have to make each animal comfortable and encourage them to stay still, which is tricky with the cheeky meerkats and Tamarin monkeys, and also find the appropriate equipment,” says Colin Northcott, Deputy Head of Carnivores at the award-winning park at Auckley, near Doncaster.
Each of the hundreds of animals, from tiny meerkats to Eastern Black Rhinos and Giraffes, has to be counted and have their vital statistics recorded as part of a national monitoring and conservation programme.
Coaxing them onto scales and to stay still long enough to get the tape measure in place took a weekend of innovation and hard work as the animals range from tiny primates weighing ounces to polar bears at 600kgs and the park’s three Eastern Black Rhinos that weight in at 1,350kgs.
“We have to make each animal comfortable and encourage them to stay still, which is tricky with the cheeky meerkats and Tamarin monkeys, and also find the appropriate equipment,” says Colin Northcott, Deputy Head of Carnivores at the award-winning park at Auckley, near Doncaster.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00 Hi, my name's Colin and I am Deputy Head of Carnivores here at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
00:06 Today we are carrying out our annual animal audit, which involves counting, measuring,
00:11 weighing each of our animals from the very smallest to the very biggest.
00:17 It is important to collect all this data about our animals for ZIMS, the Zoo Information
00:22 Management System.
00:23 ZIMS is like an encyclopedia of information of different species that is shared amongst
00:28 other zoos internationally.
00:30 It is a great resource to improve our knowledge about all the different species and share
00:35 our conservation successes, like all of our new arrivals this year, including our critically
00:40 endangered Amur Leopard Cub, Orkley.
00:42 [Cats meowing]
00:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]