In-depth aftercare guides for zoos, sanctuaries and wildlife teams
These guides are the long reads: the documents and decisions an institution should have in place before an animal dies. About 800,000 animals[1] live in AZA-accredited facilities alone, and every one of them will one day need a plan.
- Written for curators, vets and managers
- Templates you can adapt for your site
- Sourced figures, no sales pressure
Start here
Which guide do you need first?
If your institution has no written procedure for animal deaths, start with the mortality plan. It's the frame everything else hangs on. If you already have one but the provider list is thin or out of date, go to vendor vetting. If an animal has recently died and the question is how to remember it, the two memorial guides are for you.
- [Institutional mortality pre-planning](/guides/institutional-mortality-planning): roles, the first hour, routes by weight band, disease holds and records.
- [Questions institutions should ask vendors](/guides/cremation-provider-questions): capacity, exclusions, custody proof and contract terms.
- [Staff and donor-facing remembrances](/guides/organizing-pet-memorial-event): keeper gatherings, sponsor events and what to say.
- [On-grounds memorial markers](/guides/grounds-memorial-markers): plaques, trees and benches, with costs, wording and placement.
The guides are longer than our blog articles, which each answer one narrower question, such as what cremation costs or how to move a large animal. The two sets link to each other where it helps.
All guides
In-depth guides to the decisions families face, written in plain English.
Questions to ask before a cremation vendor goes into your institution's plan
Capacity, species limits, drug-residue rules, custody packets and invoicing. The questions a zoo or sanctuary should ask before signing an aftercare vendor.
Memorial markers on zoo and sanctuary grounds: what works and what it costs
Bronze plaques, granite markers, trees and benches for zoo and sanctuary animals: costs, lead times, wording, placement and whether ashes can go in the soil.
How to write an institutional mortality plan your team will actually use
Who decides, who calls the lab, where the body goes and how it's recorded. A practical template for a zoo, aquarium or sanctuary mortality protocol.
Planning a remembrance for staff and donors after a zoo animal dies
Keeper gatherings, all-staff moments and donor remembrances: formats, timing, who speaks, what to say about cause of death and how to budget the event.
Why it matters
Why do institutions need written aftercare procedures at all?
Because accreditation expects it, and because the alternative is improvising under pressure. AZA Standard 2.5.1[2] calls for necropsy of deceased animals, and Standard 2.5.3[3] for dedicated cadaver storage and lawful disposal. Inspectors look for evidence that those happen consistently, which is hard to show without a written procedure.
There's also a practical reason: large-animal capacity is scarce. A big agricultural incinerator takes up to a 1,500 lb load[4] (one manufacturer's rating), and many regions have only one or two providers who can handle hoofstock or big cats. Knowing who they are before you need them saves hours on the worst day.
By our estimate, a 1,100 lb animal uses about 73% of a 1,500 lb load[5], which is why large units take one animal at a time. For the method choices behind our plans, the USDA APHIS carcass disposal handout and Penn State Extension's mortality disposal guidance are the sources we lean on most. The services page describes each route those plans can point to.
Audience
Who are these guides written for?
Mostly for the people who have to make aftercare work inside an organization: curators, veterinarians, animal care managers, operations staff and, in smaller places, the founder who does all of those jobs. They also suit university animal programs, aquariums and rehabilitation centers with steady caseloads.
| Your role | Start with | Then read |
|---|---|---|
| Curator or director | Mortality pre-planning | Vendor questions |
| Veterinarian | Mortality pre-planning | Necropsy and aftercare workflow (blog) |
| Procurement or finance | Vendor questions | Comparing written quotes (blog) |
| Animal care manager | Staff and donor remembrances | Supporting keepers (blog) |
| Development or communications | On-grounds memorial markers | Memorializing public favorites (blog) |
Which best describes where you work with animals?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
Our approach
How are the guides researched and kept current?
Each guide draws on published standards, extension and regulator guidance, manufacturer specifications and peer-reviewed research, with the figures footnoted where they appear. Where we've done our own arithmetic, such as burn time from a published burn rate, it's labeled as our estimate. Our research page explains the sourcing in more detail.
We're an independent guide and request service, not a crematory, and we don't give legal or veterinary advice. Rules on disposal, disease and protected species vary by state and country, so each guide points you back to your own regulator where it matters. You can read more about how the site works.
The finished set
What should a complete institutional aftercare file include?
Taken together, the four guides produce a small set of documents that sit in one binder or shared folder. None of them is long. What matters is that they agree with each other and that the people on call know where they are.
- A one-page first-hour checklist, laminated for each animal area.
- The full mortality plan: roles, pre-approved routes by weight band, disease holds and records.
- A vendor file: signed service agreements, exclusions lists, sample certificates and insurance.
- A contact sheet with backups, reviewed every quarter.
- A memorial policy: who may request keepsakes or ashes, how markers are approved and who pays for upkeep.
- Individual plans for geriatric animals, attached to their records.
If you only have time for one document this month, make it the first-hour checklist. It prevents the most common problems, such as a body moved before the vet sees it, or a lab disposing of remains that keepers wanted back. Once it exists, ask a colleague who wasn't involved in writing it to follow it cold. Wherever they hesitate is where the plan needs another line.
Where you are
How do local rules and providers change the advice?
A lot. Disposal timelines, burial rules, rendering availability and disease restrictions all vary by state and country, and large-animal chambers are unevenly spread. Only about 50%[7] of US states have a rendering plant, for example, so the fallback routes in one region may not exist in the next.
Our locations pages summarize local rules and provider options by area. Use them alongside the guides when you fill in the routes table of your mortality plan, and confirm anything regulatory with your own state veterinarian or environmental agency.
How does your organization arrange aftercare today?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
Put numbers on it
Which tools go with the guides?
Most planning decisions come down to weight. The livestock mortality planner converts your heaviest animals into chamber loads, pit sizes and cost ranges, and the ashes weight estimator tells you how much comes back, typically 3-5% of body weight[8]. The full set is on the tools page.
Free tool
Livestock mortality planner
Plan disposal capacity and costs for farm losses, from one animal to a herd.
For live answers from other institutions, such as how they arrange aftercare or support keepers, see the poll results. And if you'd rather talk it through, send us your details and we'll reply by email.
Reader polls
What would you choose?
Vote anonymously and see how other readers answered. The results are live counts from people who visit this site, so they show real opinions, not a scientific sample.
Which best describes where you work with animals?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
How does your organization arrange aftercare today?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
Would you pre-pay for aftercare while your pet is still healthy?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
Free tools to help you plan
Livestock mortality planner
Plan disposal capacity and costs for farm losses, from one animal to a herd.
Ashes weight estimator
See roughly how much ash to expect back, by species and body weight.
Cremation cost calculator
Estimate a realistic price range for your pet's size, location and the type of cremation.
Questions people ask
What's the difference between the guides and the blog?
Guides cover a whole topic an institution needs to organize, such as a mortality plan or memorial markers, and include templates. Blog articles each answer one specific question, such as costs, transport or grief, in a shorter format. They link to each other where the topics overlap.
Are these guides suitable for small sanctuaries?
Yes. They're written with accredited zoos in mind, but every section scales down. A sanctuary with two staff can use the same structure for a two-page mortality plan and the same vendor questions for choosing one crematory.
Do the guides cover countries outside the US?
Mostly they use US rules and prices, with some UK and other figures where they're useful. The planning structure applies anywhere, but always check disposal, disease and protected-species rules with your own national and local regulators.
Can we reuse the checklists in our own procedures?
Yes, adapt them freely for your institution's internal documents. They're starting points, so edit them to fit your species, site, regulator and providers, and have your veterinary and compliance leads review the final version.
Where should a new curator or vet start?
With the mortality pre-planning guide, then a quick check of your institution's existing procedures against it. Most places find they have the pieces already but not in one document. After that, review your vendor file using the vendor questions guide, and the memorial guides when a loss makes them relevant.
Sources and our estimates
- [1] About 800,000 animals from roughly 6,000 species, including about 1,000 threatened or endangered species, live in AZA-accredited facilities; AZA had 238 accredited zoos and aquariums in 2025. Wikipedia - Association of Zoos and Aquariums (citing AZA), 2025.
- [2] AZA accreditation Standard 2.5.1 says deceased zoo animals should be necropsied to find the cause of death, with all deceased animals (or a sample from a mass mortality) given a gross necropsy supported by histopathology at veterinary discretion. Association of Zoos and Aquariums - 2023 Accreditation Standards & Related Policies (Standard 2.5 Necropsy), as filed in Skagit County public record, 2023.
- [3] AZA Standard 2.5.3 requires cadavers to be kept in a dedicated storage area before and after necropsy and remains to be disposed of under local and federal law. Association of Zoos and Aquariums - 2023 Accreditation Standards & Related Policies (Standard 2.5 Necropsy), as filed in Skagit County public record, 2023.
- [4] An animal incinerator sized for agricultural and animal-control use holds up to 1,500 lb per load with a maximum burn rate of 250 lb per hour (manufacturer specification). B&L Cremation Systems (manufacturer) - BLI-1500 Animal Incinerator specifications.
- [5] A 1,100 lb horse uses about 73% of a 1,500 lb animal incinerator load, so large-animal units generally cremate one horse at a time. Our estimate: 1,100 / 1,500 x 100. How we calculate.
- [6] Nine US states have pet-crematory-specific licensing or consumer statutes: California, New York, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland and Illinois. FindPetCremations - Pet Cremation Laws & Regulations by State (2026), 2026.
- [7] Only about 50% of U.S. states have rendering plants, most of them concentrated in the Midwest. Extension Horses (eXtension national Cooperative Extension) - Horse Disposal Options, 2019, 2019.
- [8] Embrace notes cremated remains typically weigh about 3-5% of the pet's original body weight. Embrace Pet Insurance - Bury or Cremate Your Dog? Costs, Pros & Cons, 2025.
Talk through your institution's aftercare
Tell us what you need and where you are. We'll reply by email with clear options and prices so you can decide in your own time.