ZooMate
The animal's profile
The animal's whole identity on one screen
Nothing to look up in a folder or dig out of messages on different platforms. You open the animal's profile, and everything you need to know to care for it today is right there.
- Local ID, GAN and transponder
- Identification marks and distinguishing features
- Weight and body condition over time
- Age and life stage
- Mother, father, siblings and offspring
- Mate and partner history
- Breeding overview and nest
- Friendships and role in the group
- Transfers between zoos
- Biography and the full history
Evidence base
No claims without a source
Management, natural behaviour, and the best-known diseases and challenges for your species are in the app — with full references to more than 3,000 professional sources. A solid foundation for understanding each species' particular needs.
Photo recognition
When the wing band has fallen off
Take a photo of an animal and the app suggests who it is by comparing it with your own reference photos. The more photos, the better the recognition.
A wrong name in a record is worse than no name. The app suggests. The keeper decides. If it is not sure, it says so rather than guessing.
Everyday work
What you do every day — without writing it twice
Everything hangs on the animal. Write an observation and it sits on the animal — and if something is wrong, a case is opened: it stays open for daily follow-up until someone closes it. If the animal moves to another zoo, its history moves with it.
Swipe to see all four
Observations on the species or the animal
Who has been seen today and who has not. Anything out of the ordinary is written down while you are standing there — on the animal it concerns. With who saw it, and when.
Training the next keeper can carry on
Each step has its own criteria, with a record of who trained the animal and how it responded. If you are off sick next week, a colleague opens the plan and carries on exactly where you left off.
Enrichment with proper follow-up
What was given and how the animal responded — on the second and third occasions too. The drop from eager to merely active is the first sign of habituation, and the app asks for the evaluation so you see it.
Notifications and reminders for colleagues
Send a notification to whoever has the round tomorrow, or set a reminder on a species.
Training plan
A plan belongs to the animal,
not to the keeper
Training usually stands or falls with the person who started it. When she is on holiday the programme stalls — or worse: someone starts over and undoes two months of work.
In ZooMate the plan sits on the animal. Every session is logged, so any colleague can open it, see exactly what worked last time, and take the next one.
Unique set-up
Set up for your zoo — not for a zoo in general
No two zoos are alike. You don't get an empty app and a manual. We set up your rounds together with you and bring the animals in from your ZIMS export, and we build a catalogue of enrichment ideas for exactly the species you keep.
Enrichment is recorded as you give it
You choose an item and tick who received it — the whole group or individual animals. Afterwards you note how they responded. Next time you can see what worked, and when an item is beginning to lose its effect.
Extend the catalogue with your own enrichment, and share your good ideas with other zoos. That way we help each other improve the welfare of our animals.
Swipe to see it all
Species-specific records
A bear entering hibernation, a penguin moulting. Every species has its own needs and cycles — and they need recording too.
Your rounds and enclosures
The rounds as you walk them, and the enclosures under the names you use. If a species is on two rounds, the groups are kept apart — what happens on one is not shown on the other.
Your species
We set up the species you keep — with distinguishing features, marking types, oestrus calendars and an evidence base that fits that particular species.
Your individuals — from your ZIMS export
The animals are imported from your ZIMS export, so local ID, GAN, dates of birth, sex, identification marks and parentage are exactly as you already have them recorded.
Without signal
It does not wait for the network
Not every house has signal, and an app that asks for patience in the middle of a weighing does not get used.
What you have recorded is sent on by itself when the signal returns. If two colleagues have written on the same animal in different places, it is merged — nothing is lost.
Who we are
Built by a keeper and an entrepreneur
ZooMate is built from the inside, by two people who know both sides of the work — and it is still being developed around the needs that arise on the rounds.
Co-founder
Diana Hyldig
Zookeeper specialising in animals in zoological collections, trained at an EAZA member institution. The app is built around her everyday work and her experience with ZIMS: what you need to know when you are with the animal, and what tends to get lost between two shifts.
The HANSENBERG Medal 2026+
Co-founder
Mads Nielsen
Managing director of several companies. He is the one who developed ZooMate, and who makes sure the product stays innovative and practical. Among other things, he also helped build Sølund Huse, named a Gazelle company by the Danish business daily Børsen in 2021 and 2022.