Animal stock take at the zoo

For most businesses, the dreaded annual stock take normally involves a trawl through the store cupboards and filing cabinets.But staff at one Norfolk company began the mammoth task of checking a constantly moving inventory list this week as they started a headcount of around 1,000 mammals, birds, primates, reptiles and invertebrates.

FOR most businesses, the dreaded annual stocktaking normally involves a trawl through the store cupboards and filing cabinets.

But staff at one Norfolk company began the mammoth task of checking a constantly moving inventory list this week as they started a headcount of around 1,000 mammals, birds, primates, reptiles and invertebrates.

The keepers at Banham Zoo were busy checking and double checking the animal enclosures at the 35-acre tourist attraction, near Attleborough, as officials prepared to submit their annual audit of the comings and goings of its 149 different species.

Some of the Norfolk zoo's new

arrivals such as its two Siberian tiger cubs and two baby giraffes are not

hard to spot. But the annual animal stocktaking can prove quite problematic when keeping track of 116 hissing cockroaches and more than 100 prairie dogs hidden in their underground burrows.

The census comes after the Norfolk

zoo had one of the best breeding

seasons in its 40-year history, with

the notable arrival of Ruby and

Josie in the giraffe enclosure and the birth of Kuzma and Vasya the Siberian tiger cubs.

Clare Jenkinson, animal record keeper, said that some of the zoo's inhabitants were very easy to keep track of, but others made her job a lot trickier.

"Unfortunately, not all our animals are as easy to spot as the giraffe. The prairie dogs are impossible to count because they spend most of their time in their burrows during the winter.

"The invertebrates, dwarf mongoose, pygmy marmosets, and meerkats are also quite good at hiding," she said.

Keepers have so far counted 978 animals at Banham Zoo.