Electronic monitoring of animals at the zoo 

The challenge

Zookeepers at Melbourne Zoo don’t have time to observe the animals in their charge. They are too busy preparing and delivering food, attending to management issues, and dealing with ongoing events. Even if they had the time, it would be a very expensive use of the zoo’s money to observe animal behaviour all day. The only times they see the animals, they are generally carrying food or enrichment devices (e.g. toys) for the animals, and this distorts animal behaviour significantly.

However, it would be really valuable to them to be able to monitor animal behaviour in a way that indicates changes in animal wellbeing.

The team's task was to develop the conceptual design for a system for monitoring the behaviour of meerkats at Melbourne Zoo.