ATTEMPTING to count hundreds of stick insects can be an arduous task, but patient keepers at Dudley Zoo are having to tally up more than 1,500 animals as part of the site’s annual census.
The yearly headcount is a requirement of the attraction’s Zoo licence and bosses have to notify Dudley Council of the numbers.
The count includes all the site’s 177 species, from the tiniest insects to the tallest giraffes, which also means some keepers have an easier job than others.
Zoo chief executive, Peter Suddock, said: “Primate and big cat keepers have it easy, we know we have four Bornean orang utans and three Asiatic lions, but for some of the smaller creatures it’s a task that requires utmost patience – stick insects are immensely difficult to count as they jump about all over the place and just as you’ve finished counting you’ll find two or three have attached themselves to your sleeve, so you have to start all over again, and counting penguins is tricky as they just won’t keep still.”
Among this year’s census, keepers counted 59 Humboldt penguins, 19 Barbary sheep, 352 stick insects, 11 meerkats, 28 Madagascan lemurs and 10 Asiatic short-clawed otters.
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