London Zoo counts its new residents in annual stocktake

Zookeepers at ZSL London Zoo have dusted off their clipboards, calculators and cameras –as they counted up all the animals at the Zoo’s annual stocktake.

Penguin chicks and pygmy goats are among the new entries in the list of residents.

Plenty of new additions arrived in 2022 including a critically endangered western lowland gorilla named Kiburi and two Sumatran tiger cubs named Zac and Crispin.

Also featured in the tally for the first time is snappy big-headed turtle Celia, whose parents were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and given a new home at the Zoo’s Reptile House in 2018.

Each year, keepers take a record of all the animals at the zoo, which houses about 300 different species.

The count of every mammal, bird, reptile, fish and invertebrate usually takes about a week to complete.

As well as the annual full count, required as part of the zoo’s license, keepers also have an inventory that is updated continuously.

ZSL’s Zoological operations manager Dan Simmonds said: “With more than 14,000 to count at ZSL London Zoo, our keepers all have their own ways of tallying up the animals in their care.

“From taking pictures of the coral tank in Tiny Giants to avoid counting the same fish twice, to using training and rewards to count larger groups such as our squirrel monkeys and Humboldt penguins.

“The stocktake is also a chance to reflect on all the amazing births and arrivals we’ve celebrated over the past 12 months, and always makes for a busy start to the year,” he added.