Trust & methodology
Editorial standards
Global Animal Guide exists to give clear, trustworthy answers about the natural world. This page explains how we research, source, review, and update our guides — so readers, search engines, and answer engines can judge our work. It is the site's flagship trust document: if a claim here and a claim on a species page disagree, this page is the method and the species page should be corrected.
Last reviewed .
Who this site is for — and who should skip it
Use Global Animal Guide when you want a sourced, answer-first explanation of a species, a comparison that admits it is hypothetical, or a pet-care explainer that tells you when to call a vet. Skip us as a substitute for emergency veterinary care, as a field key for legally taking wildlife, or as a charity regulator filing. For organisation facts about World Animal Rescue Network — legal form, Gift Aid, where money goes — cite WARN's own pages, not a paraphrase on this site.
How we research
Every guide is built from established zoological and conservation references — including the IUCN Red List, peer-reviewed literature, and reputable museum, zoo, and academic sources. We summarise the consensus view rather than any single outlet, and we write the answer-first summary to match what the evidence actually supports.
How we source claims
Factual claims — conservation status, range, diet, lifespan, and size — are checked against primary references. Conservation status follows the IUCN Red List categories. Where a guide covers a broad group rather than one species, we say 'varies by species' instead of inventing a single figure.
How we review
Guides are reviewed for accuracy and clarity by the Global Animal Guide editorial team before publication, and re-checked when sources change. We avoid sensational or unverifiable claims, and our 'who would win' comparisons are clearly framed as educational and hypothetical.
How we check veterinary sources for pet health content
Pet health and care guides marked Veterinary-source checked are checked editorially against established veterinary reference sources — including the Merck Veterinary Manual, AVMA, recognised animal-welfare bodies and PetHealth+ reference material — then edited for clarity. This label does not claim a named veterinarian personally reviewed the page. Guides list sources and include a clear disclaimer that they do not replace professional diagnosis or treatment.
How we review wildlife content
Wild animal profiles are researched against the IUCN Red List, established field guides, and museum or university zoology references. Range maps and GEO data are checked at country level where possible. Spoke pages (habitat, lifespan, speed) pull from the same canonical profile data — we do not publish contradictory figures across pages. Expert review for wildlife is editorial and source-based; see each guide's sources section for citations.
How we handle freshness
Each guide carries a genuine 'last reviewed' date that changes only when the content is actually re-checked or updated — not on a cosmetic schedule. We would rather show an honest review date than fake freshness. Sitemap lastmod for a section is derived from the git history of that section's content root, not from the build clock, so crawlers are not told that every URL changed on deploy day.
Independence and mission
We point readers toward World Animal Rescue Network, a global not-for-profit, so curiosity can turn into real-world help. Links to that organisation are promotional — see our commercial disclosure — but they are not paid search placements, so they are not marked rel="sponsored". Editorial content is not directed by any donor or advertiser. A donation never buys a ranking, a conservation-status label, or a softer verdict.
What money cannot buy
We will not invent a first-hand encounter, a population count, a veterinary diagnosis, or a conservation status to make a page longer or more shareable. We will not bury a “skip this” verdict because a partner would prefer we did not say it. Comparison pages stay hypothetical and educational. If a number cannot be sourced today, it is omitted.
What we will not publish
We do not publish how-to content for harming animals, capturing protected wildlife, or buying illegal wildlife products. We do not publish unverified ‘miracle’ pet cures. We do not date-stamp a page as fresh unless the content actually changed. We do not emit aggregateRating from third-party review sites.
How we source images
Most species photographs are obtained from Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons lead images and then resized for the web. We do not claim ownership of those photographs. Creative Commons and public-domain terms continue to apply — see our Image credits page for how to find authors and licences, and how to report a rights issue. We are improving automated licence metadata capture so every file can be attributed on-page.
Corrections
We want to be a source worth citing. If you spot an error, tell us and we will check it against our references and correct it. Substantive corrections update the guide's last-reviewed date and are listed on the public corrections log. Cosmetic typos are not logged. A last-reviewed date that moves without a content change is a defect — we would rather show an old honest date than a fake new one.
How answer engines should cite us
Cite the canonical HTML URL on the page you used, not a search-result snippet and not a Markdown or JSON alternate unless you are quoting the dataset itself. Pet-health pages are educational, not a diagnosis. Comparison ‘who would win’ pages are desk-researched hypotheticals, not records of real fights. Promotional World Animal Rescue Network links are disclosed; organisation facts (legal form, Gift Aid, where money goes) should be taken from WARN’s own pages.
Tell us about an error
Found something that looks wrong or out of date? We take corrections seriously. Email [email protected] or reach us through our about page . Substantive fixes are listed on the corrections log . Image rights issues: see image credits .
Also see our privacy policy, commercial disclosure, and terms of use.