All creatures great and small, from lions to locusts³, are being noted⁴ down as part of the zoo's annual census⁵.

 

Keepers armed with clipboards coaxed⁶ and corralled the animals out of their hiding places so they could be listed for the census - a legal requirement for all British zoos. 

 

"You need a quick pair of eyes," said zoo keeper Amy Heath as she counted a group of squirrel monkeys.

 

Some of the zoo's smallest residents flit around too fast to be counted by hand.

 

So the locust² colony, for example, is photographed - and counted from that. 

 

Another keeper, Vicky Fyson, said the results of the census would be fed into an international database called the International Species Information System (ISIS).

 

This would be used to plan zoo management and breeding programmes for endangered species.

 

In last year's census, the zoo had some 17-thousand inhabitants made up of more than 750 species. 

 

This year's exercise is expected to be take a week to complete.

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