Annual animal count begins at ZSL London Zoo
- Published
ZSL London Zoo is home to more than 700 different species. Each year, zookeepers have the mammoth task of counting all of the animals, from sloths to snails. This Partula snail is one of 2,132!
Some of these Humboldt penguins are new to the count. They arrived at the zoo last year.
Well, it seems they're not shy. And they're not the only animals who like to get involved...
This nosey camel is checking the keeper didn't miss him off the list!
And some animals are more helpful than others...
But counting bigger animals, like these playful tigers, is easy. Zookeepers come up with other ways to count smaller creatures. Keepers in the aquarium take photos of the fish tanks and count the number of fish from the images, to make sure they don't count the same fish twice! But some animals are just too small. The B.U.G.S. team 'cheat' and don't count every single ant, they just count a whole ant colony as one.
Animals like these meerkats don't always make it easy to concentrate, but once all of the animals have been counted, the information is shared with other zoos and aquariums all over the world. The data helps to organise the worldwide conservation breeding programmes for endangered animals.
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