Entered the same day
AZA's standards expect daily records entered the same day, or by the end of the next working day. An entry made at the moment of the observation is already inside that window.3
What it records
12 groups of record.
Everything below is in ARK today, not on a roadmap. Where something needs a particular plan, the card says which one.
The animal
One record per animal or per group, with the identifiers a registrar needs and a history that keeps the dates things really happened on.
- One animal, or a whole group, recorded the same way
- Microchip, band, USDA, studbook and case identifiers
- Intake, transfer, release, death - each with the date it happened
- Photos on the animal record
- Split one animal out of a group when it needs its own record, and keep the history on both
The daily log
The entry everything else hangs off: a note, a category, a photo, and the time you actually saw it.
- Categories you name yourself, matching what your team already says
- Written up later still carries the time you actually saw it
- Works with no signal, and will not save the same note twice
- Search across every log you have ever written
Measurements and readings
Weights on an animal, water chemistry on a tank. Recorded the same way, because a reading belongs to the animal or the place it was taken from.
- Whatever you measure, in the units you already use
- Enclosure readings: pH, temperature, salinity, whatever you track
- Set the range you expect, and a different one for a particular enclosure
- A reading outside that range flags itself and puts a job on someone's list
- See how it has moved over weeks and months, per animal or per enclosure
Feeding and diet
What was offered, what happened to it, and whether the refusals are becoming a pattern.
- Food items your organization curates
- Eaten, partial, refused or regurgitated
- Amounts stay in the units you entered them in
- Repeated refusals get flagged before anyone would have noticed the pattern
Tasks and reminders
Work that recurs, assigned or not, and visible to whoever walks in next.
- Jobs that repeat, attached to an animal or to the whole facility
- Due today and overdue, on the home screen
- Email digest and push reminders
- Complete from the dashboard in one tap
- Standard and up
Medical
Somewhere to write down what was done. Deliberately not a clinical system: it will not work out a dose for you or suggest a diagnosis.
- Medication schedules that put themselves on the task list
- Vaccinations with lot numbers
- Vet visit notes with attachments
- The whole medical history in date order on the animal's page
- Standard and up
Welfare checks
Your own checklist, starting from the Five Domains model, scored one to five in five taps.
- Every domain has to be scored, so a check is never half-done
- A low score raises one job to follow up, not a pile of them
- See whether an animal is improving or sliding
- An overdue-for-a-check list
- Standard and up
Documents and files
Permits, intake forms, lab results and transfer paperwork, attached where they belong.
- Attach to an animal, a vet visit or the organization
- Permits with expiry dates and renewal reminders
- Download any of it, on any plan
- Pro and up
Compliance documents
The paperwork that has to be produced rather than browsed, generated from the records you already keep.
- Annual inventory by species, with every acquisition and disposition in the period
- Printable transfer form with what a receiving facility asks for, filled in already
- Care sheet for the enclosure door, built from observed diet and routines
- Permit renewal reminders in the daily digest
- Download as a spreadsheet, or as a file that opens in Excel
The facility
Areas, sections and enclosures, rearranged by dragging - and history that survives the rearranging.
- Three levels: area, section, enclosure
- See how full an area is, counted up from the enclosures inside it
- A crowding warning that never stops you moving an animal
- Reorganize or rename, and old records still show where the animal really was
Orientation
For the volunteer who was last here on Sunday and needs to know what changed.
- Since your last visit: new logs, completed tasks, new intakes, alerts
- Activity calendar over logs and tasks
- A home screen that shows what your role needs
- Saved searches (Standard and up)
Getting your data in and out
Moving records in from a spreadsheet or another system, and taking them out again.
- Upload a spreadsheet, say which column is which, check the preview, then import
- Step-by-step instructions for files exported from AnimalCare and ZIMS
- Import the same file twice and you will not get two of everything
- Download your animals and logs as a spreadsheet, on any plan
- Connect ARK to another system, if you have someone who wants to (Pro)
Standards and compliance
What the accrediting bodies require.
AZA, the Zoological Association of America and the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries each require an accredited member to keep an animal records system. None of them requires a particular vendor. What they want is that the records exist, that they are current, and that you can produce them.2
Produced on demand
The annual inventory, the transfer form and the care sheet are generated from the records you already keep, on the day someone asks for them. These are on the Pro plan; downloading your animals and logs as a spreadsheet is on every plan.
Able to show their own history
When an inspector asks who recorded something and when, the answer is in the record - including what it said before anyone changed it, and what happened to entries somebody removed.
Two things that depend on which rules bind you
How long you have to keep it
Licensed exhibitors under the Animal Welfare Act keep records for one year after an animal is disposed of or dies, longer where other law applies. Federal migratory bird rehabilitation permits require five years. State schedules differ again.4 ARK never deletes on a schedule of its own, so the retention question stays yours to answer against the rules that actually bind you.
When your annual report is due
California, Washington and New York each have their own form and their own deadline, and they do not agree with each other.5 ARK holds the underlying data, dated, attributable and exportable, whichever form you have to fill in.
Get in touch
Tell us about your facility.
There is no self-serve signup yet and no demo environment to click through. Write to us with what you keep records in today and roughly how many animals are in your care, and we will tell you whether ARK is ready to be useful to you.