London zoo animal count

The question that the zookeepers ask during the annual stocktake is 'Exactly how many animals live at London Zoo?' The zookeepers are set to start counting.

Home to more than 300 different species and around 14,000 animals, London Zoo's documented some popular additions this year too. Zoo manager Dan Simmonds explains.

Dan Simmonds: "Probably the star of the show has been our western lowland gorilla, silverback gorilla, Kiburi, who's been introduced to our resident gorillas here and is doing incredibly well. We had two tiger cubs, we had 10 Humboldt penguins, some of which were actually hand-reared by keepers here. So, generally it's been a really exciting time at the zoo and numbers growing."

From the huge gorillas to the tiny frogs, every creature's included in the final count, and their details are carefully noted. It's a challenge to find ways of counting some creatures. Keepers take photos of fish to avoid counting the same fish twice. The ants are looked after by the 'tiny giants' team. They count each ant colony, instead of counting every ant.

The keepers who have to look after squirrel monkeys or Humboldt penguins try training and tricks. This works with playful mammals and birds in big groups. Dan Simmonds explains why it's necessary to have an up-to-date number.

Dan Simmonds: 'So it's really important that we keep a accurate record of all the animals that we have here at the zoo. We record that onto something that's called ZIMS - Zoological Information Management System - and we share that globally with all of the zoos that we cooperate with around the whole world. And that's a really important part of the management of our captive breeding programs.'

The annual stocktake has further advantages as zookeepers can meet the new arrivals, and it's an opportunity to improve planning. Any developments for the coming year can help to make the zoo's animals more at home.

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