In Pictures: Counting The Animals At London Zoo

In Pictures: Counting The Animals At London Zoo

The annual count of animals is under way at London Zoo as keepers take stock after four meerkats and an aardvark died in a fire before Christmas.

The zoo reopened on Christmas Eve, but the stocktake – originally set for January 2 – was postponed until this week to “get more staff involved” and give the zoo more planning time.

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Kirsty O’Connor

More than 19,000 individual animals are counted in the annual stocktake (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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Kirsty O’Connor

Max the eagle owl gets wise (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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Keeper Zu Zanna takes it easy with the penguins (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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Tony Cholerton puts up with no monkey business (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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Zookeepers count up during feeding time and take a microchip reading (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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Laura Carrigan goes back to basics to count the lemurs (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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Collette Gibbings counts moon jellyfish (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

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An Asiatic lion checks the final figures at ZSL London Zoo (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)