Whipsnade Zoo Animals Help With Annual Stocktake

Posted By : The Animal Facts Editorial Team

Date: January 7, 2022 11:59 am

A ring-tailed lemur at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo helps to count his troop during the annual stocktake

Photo Credit: ZSL Whipsnade Zoo

Zookeepers at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo have counted all of the animals housed at the UK’s biggest zoo. The keepers weren’t alone though with some of the animals joining in to lend a hand such as the ring-tailed lemurs who conducted their own count with an abacus.

It’s a big job with over 9,500 animals housed at the zoo. With clipboards and calculators in hand the keepers went to work counting every invertebrate, bird, fish, mammal, reptile and amphibian.

A keeper counts the Bactrian camel herd at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo

Photo Credit: ZSL Whipsnade Zoo

The range of animals needing to be counted include three, boisterous Amur tiger brothers and hundreds of beautiful butterflies. Elsewhere in the zoo the conspiracy (group) of ring-tailed lemurs helped to count themselves and the the rockhopper penguins were keen to line up to be counted, in exchange for some fishy treats.

Some animals were participating in their first count. Nandi a southern white rhinoceros calf was counted with her crush and a number of baby chameleons were added to the zoo’s official records.

Another exciting addition to the count were a number of Critically Endangered and Extinct-in-the-Wild freshwater fish, bred at the Zoo’s Aquarium and freshwater conservation breeding center.

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ZSL Whipsnade Zoo’s animal manager, Matthew Webb said: “Today marks the start of the annual stocktake, where we make sure every animal is recorded as part of our official zoo license requirements.

“We’ll also share the information with other zoos around the world, as the numbers are used to plan the conservation breeding programmes for endangered species.

“Some species are easy to count, but others can be tricky: our Aquarium keepers sometimes take still images of the tanks so they don’t count the same fish twice, while our almost 200 deer have to be counted with a lot of stealth and a lot of patience!”