Welcome to your local community website...
Annual stocktake at London Zoo
The first week back to work after Christmas is always hectic, but even more so for keepers at London Zoo.
On Tuesday (5) last week, zoo keepers at the Regent's Park-based zoo were head counting every animal during their annual stocktake.
More than 750 species of animal call the zoo home, including meerkats, giraffes and zebras.
The last year has seen many new inhabitants to the zoo, including a Komodo dragon and a pair of nosey aardvarks.
In August, the zoo also welcomed the first Asian lion cubs born in a decade, to Abi, 10, and Lucifer, six.
Lioness Abi was the last cub to be born at the zoo in 1999, and the new mother has taken quite a shine to her playful pair.
David Field, zoological director, said: "We keep around 750 species and 14,500 individuals and that's quite a job in counting.
"We have to do it as part of our zoo licence and we have to report back to our licence authorities all the animals and all the events of the animals over the last year.
"The second reason is for conservation.
"It's important that we know not just how many animals we have got but who we have got.
"Once we have got all of this information, we send it to an organisation called Isis, which runs a global animal database where all responsible zoos worldwide send their information to this same database and we use this to manage breeding programmes for critically endangered species across the world's zoos."
We'd like to hear from you. Send your stories, pics and videos
who said i was nosey? slander!