London Zoo Counts Its Creatures

One penguin, two penguins, three penguins, four.

Counting these friendly flappers was just one of 752 species that London zookeepers had to tally for their annual creature count.

Luckily head keeper Adrian Walls knows where his 64 penguins like to hide.

[Adrian Walls, Penguin Keeper]:
"Sometimes it's very difficult to count the penguins. We are very lucky we work with penguins every day, so we know them all individually, so we get to know their characters, we get to know where their general places are, where they are going to hang around. So on a daily basis we can count them simply by just learning their characteristics."

The figures for this are important. Zoos are collectively reporting their findings to preserve the endangered species.

The London Zoo itself is home to nearly 18,500 creatures, so the annual stock take is no small undertaking.

Counting every mammal, bird, fish, reptile, amphibian and invertebrate takes several weeks.

But after a long day, the first day's count yielded four camels, seven stick insects, 11 tarantulas, 15 meerkats and 23 squirrel monkeys.