Animal identification: from traditional methods to Biometric approaches

Individual animal identification helps with effective management, health monitoring, and legal compliance across various domains, including livestock management, wildlife conservation, pet identification, and scientific research.Despite the importance of reliable identification systems, there remains a lack of a unique, tamper-proof, and dependable method.This paper explores the evolution of animal identification techniques, from traditional methods such as branding and tagging to contemporary biometric approaches, which aim to enhance the precision and reliability of animal identification.Since animals are unable to communicate verbally and they often resist human interaction, capturing biometrics presents unique challenges.By examining the advantages and limitations of different identification methods, the study emphasizes the growing importance of biometric technologies that leverage unique biological characteristics, such as DNA, retina scans, and fingerprint patterns.While biometric identification systems offer notable benefits in terms of reliability, accuracy, and animal welfare, they also face challenges related to specialize equipment's developed for animal trait(s) acquisition for finding the unique features may be used for their identification, cost barriers, and issues surrounding standardization.The paper concludes that while biometric identification holds potential, the most effective solutions may involve the integrating both traditional and modern methods to overcome the practical challenges associated with them.