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News Bites continued
Dolphin Diagnostics Dr. Tom Meehan at
the Seoul Zoo with
SCIENCE Anyone who has visited Seven Seas or attended Suzanne Gendren,
Executive Director of
Dolphins in Action can attest to the great care Zoological Operations
Brookfield Zoo’s dolphins receive—they all exhibit and Education at Ocean
healthy, natural behaviors and appear to be thriving in their habitat. In Park in Hong Kong.
addition to the training and enrichment these dolphins receive, we also
have a team of veterinarians and an animal nutritionist who help these IMPACT Raising Global Standards
animals maintain an appropriate diet, which keeps them in a healthy
weight range. One of the Chicago Zoological Society’s top priorities is
But our animal care and welfare teams aren’t just concerned with
dolphins under our care—they want to ensure that all dolphins living in to engage communities with wildlife and nature—it’s
zoological facilities around the world are maintaining healthy weights.
Their newest program, ZooMorphTrak, was created to do just that. part of our mission statement, after all. But this doesn’t just mean local
Working closely with the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota
Dolphin Research Program (which runs the world’s longest-running communities. Sometimes, those communities are very far away.
study of a wild dolphin population), along with animal care specialists
at Brookfield Zoo and partners at other Association of Zoos and In addition to his role as the Society’s vice president of veterinary
Aquariums-accredited facilities, the team was able to ascertain a
healthy weight range for adult bottlenose dolphins based on their age, services, Dr. Tom Meehan has spent the past two years helping two
sex, length, and girth measurements. ZooMorphTrak is essentially a
database of this information. zoological parks in South Korea—Everland and Seoul Zoo—achieve
Not every institution has the space for scales to weigh their dolphins.
Care staff at these institutions can enter an individual dolphin’s age, sex, accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
length, and girth measurements into ZooMorphTrak to determine that
dolphin’s estimated weight, based on the information from dolphins AZA is dedicated to advancing zoos and public aquariums in the
under professional care at accredited institutions. Staff can then create
an individualized meal and care plan to ensure that dolphin receives areas of conservation, education, science, and recreation. It has been
the amount of calories necessary to stay at (or get to) a healthy weight.
If institutions already know the weight of their dolphins, care staff can the primary accrediting body for these institutions for more than
enter that data into ZooMorphTrak to see how it compares to known
healthy dolphins living in Sarasota Bay and can make dietary tweaks 40 years—its rigorous, scientifically based and publically available
as necessary. Either way, this program will help ensure the health of
dolphins across a wide range of institutions. standards examine a zoo or aquarium’s entire operation to determine
One of Brookfield if it is providing the highest standard of welfare to the animals in its
Zoo’s dolphins
takes to the scale care. And every institution accredited by AZA must be inspected and
while an animal
care specialist accredited every five years to ensure it is continually improving and
records its weight.
meeting the latest standards of animal welfare (Brookfield Zoo has
10 GATEWAYS | NEWS BITES
been accredited by the AZA for more than 25 years).
Meehan has taken two trips to South Korea to help these institutions
with the accreditation process, and he met with zoo officials when
they recently visited the United States. He is the perfect person to help
these institutions achieve their goal: he spent 12 years as a member
of the accreditation commission for the AZA and has done about 40
inspections of various institutions to ensure they are meeting the
organization’s high standards.
Meehan said he is excited to see these zoos taking their commitment
to animal welfare so seriously. “AZA is constantly raising the bar,” he said.
“Becoming accredited is not an easy feat, and these organizations have
shown they’re very dedicated to their mission. It’s exciting to help them.”
In 2018, AZA updated its animal welfare and care standards. They
have always required appropriate habitats, social groups, and care
for animals, all of which should lead to good welfare. However, the
question has been raised—how do you know that the animals are
exhibiting signs of good welfare? Each accredited institution now must
develop a concrete way to measure their animals’ welfare. Just like
currently accredited zoos in North America, Everland and Seoul Zoo are
eagerly working to meet this standard, Meehan said.
Both Everland and Seoul Zoo hope to receive official AZA
accreditation in 2019. Their applications are scheduled to be reviewed
at the 2019 AZA conference in New Orleans. █
