Despite the arrival of 11 chicks last year and five new adults, the keepers can recognize the Humboldt penguins individually.
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Breeding success: London Zoo counts its animals one by one
by Joe JACKSON
With bunches of lettuce and buckets full of nuts, London Zoo kicked off its annual animal count on Friday, taking everything from goats to gorillas out of their enclosures for the famous inventory.
The zoo, which is almost two centuries old, holds its formal count for almost a week at the beginning of January, with several new additions that have already proved to be highlights.
“We've had some successful breeding successes in the last year,” animal operations manager Dan Simmonds told AFP, listing the 11 penguin cubs, three Asiatic lion cubs, and two baby gorillas born in 2024.
The zoo also rescued 53 Darwin's frogs from Chile, which are among the so-called Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species and bred several Socorro doves, now extinct in the wild.
The keepers of the various enclosures will be “very busy” over the next few days, as they will be counting more than 10,000 animals from over 400 species, Simmonds noted.
“We've been working since before six o'clock in the morning, and we'll continue until the end of today and then repeat for a few more days until we've finished all the counting,” he said.
Yoga for lemurs
But with morning temperatures close to zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) in the middle of London's winter, some inhabitants needed a little more encouragement to get out of their heated cabins.
The zoo's eight ring-tailed lemurs, endangered primates that celebrate the dry forests and bushes of Madagascar were especially shy at sunrise.
One pair ended up heading for an outdoor heat lamp, where they perched happily in unison in yoga poses. The rest of the lemurs warmed themselves under internal heaters.
“Lemurs sunbathe and do their famous yoga pose - this allows them to receive the sun's rays in the center of their bodies,” Simmonds noted.
At the Gorilla Kingdom, there were no problems getting the group of seven western lowland gorillas out of their pens for visual confirmation of their numbers.
Their two youngest members - Juno and Venus, born in January and February last year - clung to their mothers as the troop ran off to pick up a variety of vegetables.
“We're very excited about the baby gorillas,” said Glynn Hennessy, who is in charge of the zoo's primates.
“It was a long effort to get a male, for him to court the females and then produce two cubs for us.
“And we're seeing their personalities come out every day,” he added of Juno and Venus.
“They're very different, but it's wonderful to see the family group with a few more members now.”
Western lowland gorillas live in the rainforests and swamps of West and Central Africa, where their numbers are threatened by deforestation, hunting, and disease.
Penguin memorization
In another part of the zoo, the Humboldt penguins, originally from Peru and Chile, were busy swimming or sunbathing in the morning while the count began.
In addition to the birth of 11 chicks last year, five new adults have arrived from other European zoos, bringing the colony to 65.
We're very excited about the baby gorillas,” said Glynn Hennessy, who is responsible for the zoo's primates.
Eleven penguin chicks were born at London Zoo last year, and Humboldt's penguin colony now has 65 chicks.
The group of seven western lowland gorillas includes two chicks born last January and February.
We're very excited about the baby gorillas,” said Glynn Hennessy, the zoo's head of primates.
Eleven penguin chicks were born at London Zoo last year, and the Humboldt penguin colony now has 65 chicks.
Despite the large number, their keepers manage to recognize them individually, according to Simmonds.
“It's amazing - I certainly couldn't do that,” he added, noting that each one had a small bracelet as a support to identify them.
“Think of Taylor Swift's kind of friendship bracelet, so if you really need it, or if you've forgotten, you can look at the chart and formally identify them.
“But guardians generally don't need to do that. They can just do everything from memory.”
The zoo's diverse range of invertebrates must also be accounted for in the inventory, a requirement of its zoological license.
This includes a thriving new hive of bees - fortunately counted as one to avoid counting dozens of busy bees on the move.
Once completed, the count will be shared with other zoos around the world - via a database called ZIMS Species360 - where it will be used to help manage global breeding programs for endangered animals.
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