Admission Records Analysis For Size and Prior Injury, and Development of Streamlined Admissions Tool

Description

By Nicole Simon, Date of Project Submission: April 2015., Completed for: Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre ; Supervising Professor: Sharon Beaucage-Johnson; Trent Community Research Centre, FRSC4890 - Community Based Research, The research conducted for the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre was completed with the
purpose of understanding the dangers that the turtle population of Ontario faces. Spatial analysis
was conducted on the 2016 intake records for the OTCC. This analysis was completed using
ArcGIS 10.1 which allowed the construction of a number of maps to be completed. A literature
review was conducted outlining the different methodologies used to assign turtles to age
categories. Within the literature review other wildlife Centres were contacted to obtain
information on how they perform age categorization. These methods were compared to the
OTCC and it was discovered that the best method would be to track turtles from hatchling, but
this is not always possible. Analysis of the intake records were then completed with the goal of
determining size by species and prior injury data. The size by species analysis yielded numerous
graphs depicting the average size by species as well as age, and sex. Unfortunately, there was not
enough data available to make usable inferences on prior injury data. This information would be
crucial for maintaining mitigation or even implementing it. A task of the project included
developing a digital intake tool to allow for more consistent record keeping. The completion of
the digital intake tool now includes a separate section for prior injury to allow for prior injury
analysis to be conducted.