As we’re going a wee bit crazy with animal news at the moment, here’s an arithmetic tale from London Zoo. They’re about to count each and every one of their animals.
Sounds like a last, desperate attempt to find something for staff to do, during reduced-visitor season. But no. Apparently, they have to perform an annual ‘stock taking’ to ensure they haven’t missed anything. (Calling the animals ‘stock’ sits a little uncomfortably with us; we always wondered what’s in those little brown cubes we sprinkle into our curry.)
Zookeepers will be scouring the pens to see who’s been eaten, who’s been stolen, who’s been spawned and who’s been hiding unnoticed down the back of their enclosure.
And 2006 sounds like an important one for the zoo. They have a new butterfly house and giraffe-viewing platform planned for Easter. Rumours that they’re constructing a ‘giant ark of Biblical proportions’ in the bear enclosure are, sadly, unfounded.
