The animal count may have finished across site for another year, but now the hard work starts for DZG’s Registrar and Research Co-ordinator, Dr David Beeston.
Over the last week keepers have been counting every animal on site as part of the annual stock-take which is not so easy when there’s more than 1,500 animals and 197 species across 40 acres.
But with the census over, the focus now turns to Dr Beeston who has to input all the results into the online animal database, called Zoological Information System (ZIMS), which is a comprehensive catalogue of health and wellbeing of animals across the world.
Dr Beeston, pictured above receiving files from Curator Richard Brown, said: “My job is to make sure our yearly inventory tallies with the results gathered by our keepers.
“Even with the opening of Castle Creatures to include this year, everything went straightforward and the exercise highlights the importance of good record keeping and note keeping in managing our animal collection.”
The results are also submitted annually to the local authority as part of the zoo licensing requirements.
And some of the latest results include
Medicinal leech 11
Humboldt penguins – 74
Madagascar hissing cockroach 103
Boa constrictor 6
Ring-tailed lemurs 10
Red junglefowl – 37
Bornean orang utan 4
Goldfish – 27
Seba’s short-tailed bat 38
Asiatic lion 3
Meerkat 17
Reindeer 8
Barbary Sheep 22
