Animal population listings?
- Thread starter Mr Saxon
- Start date
For listings in captivity, it's easy. Just go to www.isis.org and click on "find animals." Animals are listed by species with how many are in each zoo in the world. Of course, some private facilities and third world zoos do not list, but all the major ones are there.
For listings in the wild, I doubt there is an accurate list because many estimates are pure guesswork and not really reliable. There's just no way to count many kinds of secretive animals - even big ones like pumas and leopards.
For listings in the wild, I doubt there is an accurate list because many estimates are pure guesswork and not really reliable. There's just no way to count many kinds of secretive animals - even big ones like pumas and leopards.
For worldwide animal listings:
www.isis.org
For european animal listings:
ZootierlisteHomepage
for wild status:
IUCN Red List - Home Page
for wild status:
Wikipedia
www.isis.org
For european animal listings:
ZootierlisteHomepage
for wild status:
IUCN Red List - Home Page
for wild status:
Wikipedia
With all due respect the only reliable listings are ISIS (allthough data improvement project is required to get it up to an acceptable level within 95%-100% limits) and IUCN Red List.
The zootierliste is not fully inclusive (where ISIS at least has current most reliable species holdings) and is open to error.
Wikipedia with all due respect is highly questionable as anyone is able to publish data and no recourse is given to checking data (as would be required for a scientifically soundly based data collection service). Hence, I would strongly discourage anyone from using it as a data source, rather a reference source at best (and then double-check elswhere).
I'm sorry but with this line i fully not agree with you. The public version of ISIS is at least as inaccurate as Zootierliste, and a lot more incomplete. Many major collections do not list their species and of those who do, many are either incomplete and/or include ghosts species or even faults in their software? (San Diego's listing is filled with ghost entries).
Perhaps the date behind the scenes is better, but none of us can enter that.
So if you ask me, Zootierliste is a better source for unreliable information then ISIS. I do agree on the fact that both are unreliable from a scientific point of view.
Depending on what you want and/or need, Wikipedia is the easiest to access source of information. Researchers have shown that wikipedia is at least as reliable then other encyclopedia and has more people correcting info then any other source.
So it all depends on what you need. Are you conducting a scientific research, then neither of the 4 above mentioned sites are really any good. You'll have to base your opinion on multiple research papers and read them critically! before you can draw any conclusions (and even then, you usually add the words "probably" and "to my knowledge").
If you're just somebody behind a computer, trying to find some information on certain relatively well known and common species, imho these sites should do just fine.
I am merely stating from a scientific point of view here. ISIS contains all relevant data inscribed by participating institutions. So, this includes births, transfers, ID-data, breeding potential, life history tables (that for sure most of use can never access as off-limits).
The public ISIS data sets at least lists contain listings of current numbers and births over the last 6/12 months. Where in ISIS there is definitely a lot of room for improvement is data reconciliation (the ghost entries, often brought on by mistakes in digitising the dates of death or transfer and that often a zoo may list its entry animal as originating from an unknown location, whereas in all truth it has not been correctly digitised from the exporting location/zoological facility). When the Windows-based ZIMS database - thank heavens - will be operational this may be a thing of the past and some of the more reluctant zoos to contribute to ISIS (e.g. Zoo Berlin) may re-think their approach to full participation in the network.
To my knowledge - even though I acknowledge fully that Zootierliste.de is well maintained by zoo enthusiasts - it only states which zoos keep which species and not the numbers or any births and certainly not transfers and deaths. From a scientific point of view it remains equally less than complete.
Other than that, you are right ... there is different ways to go about things here. But, I would certainly discourage anyone from ever using Wikipedia as a reliable source (you can never use it as a reference for a scientific paper or for that most other sources publicised through the Net, safe for the happy few maintained by accredited scientific institutions or UN-type/style international organisations like WWF/IUCN/UNEP/WCMC).
The public ISIS data sets at least lists contain listings of current numbers and births over the last 6/12 months. Where in ISIS there is definitely a lot of room for improvement is data reconciliation (the ghost entries, often brought on by mistakes in digitising the dates of death or transfer and that often a zoo may list its entry animal as originating from an unknown location, whereas in all truth it has not been correctly digitised from the exporting location/zoological facility). When the Windows-based ZIMS database - thank heavens - will be operational this may be a thing of the past and some of the more reluctant zoos to contribute to ISIS (e.g. Zoo Berlin) may re-think their approach to full participation in the network.
To my knowledge - even though I acknowledge fully that Zootierliste.de is well maintained by zoo enthusiasts - it only states which zoos keep which species and not the numbers or any births and certainly not transfers and deaths. From a scientific point of view it remains equally less than complete.
Other than that, you are right ... there is different ways to go about things here. But, I would certainly discourage anyone from ever using Wikipedia as a reliable source (you can never use it as a reference for a scientific paper or for that most other sources publicised through the Net, safe for the happy few maintained by accredited scientific institutions or UN-type/style international organisations like WWF/IUCN/UNEP/WCMC).