Abstract: The present invention creates a permanent record of an animal through a series of steps including, preliminarily acquiring an image of the retinal vasculature of the animal of interest; digitizing that image if the image is not a digital image; analyzing the image to determine if the image is satisfactory for further analysis; storing the image; and analyzing the image for unique anatomical landmarks. The image and data gathered therefrom may be stored in a database for later retrieval and comparison against other images. The data gathered from the image may be compared against other stored data in the database to determine the identity of the animal. Preferably, the system would also include a global positioning system (“GPS”) device which would simultaneously time and date stamp the acquired image as well as stamp the image with the location where the imaging took place by recording the latitude and longitude of that location.