STAFF at Marwell Zoo have dusted off their clipboards, dug out their click counters and sharpened their pencils ahead of its annual animal audit.

The huge job of counting every species in the zoo takes place at the start of each year and is a requirement of its licence. These animal audits are conducted at zoos throughout the country and help to give a bigger picture of conservation efforts in UK zoos.

In total Marwell counted 138 species, including 18 invertebrate species, 13 fish, two amphibians, 17 reptiles, 31 birds and 57 mammals.

This year’s audit revealed that the zoo held a total of 31 flamingos, two pygmy hippos, four Kirk’s Dik-dik and two Brazilian Salmon Tarantula.

The audit also recorded 15 zebra – five of each species (Hartmanns Mountain, Plains and Grevy’s) making Marwell the only UK zoo to house all three.

The zoo’s two male Beisa Oryx, the only ones in UK collections, were also recorded on the stock take, alongside a pair of clouded leopards who arrived in the summer, Goeldi’s monkeys and red-bellied lemurs – all new additions to Marwell’s tally.

Other new arrivals included red-legged millipedes for the tropical house and the male giraffe Mburo who joined Marwell from Chester Zoo.

READ MORE: Marwell Zoo announces revamp of tropical house building

All of this year’s births and deaths are also captured by the audit, which records the exact number of animals held by the zoo on December 31 each year.

The spreadsheet also records any new arrival from other zoos as well as animals that leave Marwell through breeding programmes to go elsewhere.

The huge task of coordinating the collection of this data was overseen by zoo registrar Debbie Pearson, who’s responsible for keeping track of everything living in the zoo.

Debbie said: “We keep track of the animals throughout the year, if they go to other collections and of course when we have new arrivals, but the audit is a chance to take stock of everything living at the zoo on that one specific day each year. It’s an important part of our zoo licensing agreement. 

“Most of the animals are counted as individuals but there are some very small species, such as the millipedes, vampire crabs and snails that are counted in groups because it’s difficult to get an accurate count with such large numbers.”

A full list of all the animals included in this year’s count can be found at marwell.org.uk/animals-at-marwell.