Inside London Zoo's Veterinary World: A Photographer's Year-Long Journey
How does one move a sedated rhinoceros? Can a tiny dormouse be safely anesthetized? What happens when a lion develops an unusually narrow ear canal? How does the world's longest venomous snake react to medical treatment?
These were just some of the questions Guardian photographer David Levene sought to answer during an unprecedented year-long project documenting the intricate veterinary operations at London Zoo and its sister site at Whipsnade. As the Zoological Society of London celebrates its 200th birthday this spring, Levene gained rare access to the specialized team responsible for keeping some of the world's most endangered animals healthy and thriving.
The King Cobra's Revenge
Levene discovered that treating dangerous animals rarely goes smoothly. When he photographed a king cobra named Arthur immediately after it received an anesthetic injection, the snake gave him what Levene describes as "its own version of the hairdryer treatment."
"I was the first person he saw after he'd been jabbed in the tail and he reared up and opened his mouth and started spitting at me," Levene recalls. "I was behind glass but I told him, 'It wasn't me!'"
This particular king cobra, whose venom could kill an elephant, was receiving treatment for a spinal abnormality requiring regular monitoring. The incident highlighted the constant dangers faced by zoo veterinary staff working with potentially lethal animals.
From Lions to Dormice: The Full Spectrum of Care
On just his second day of the project, Levene found himself face-to-face with Bhanu, an Asiatic lion suffering from chronic recurrent ear infections. The lion required general anesthesia for a full examination - always a last resort but necessary for his condition. While sedated, veterinarians performed comprehensive checks, including inspecting his teeth, which are crucial for a carnivore's health.
The veterinary team at ZSL represents a rare specialization in British zoology. Only a handful of UK zoos employ their own in-house veterinarians. ZSL maintains a comprehensive team including five vets, six nurses, a pathologist, pathology technician, molecular diagnostician, and microbiologist.
At the opposite end of the size spectrum, Levene observed the delicate procedure of checking captive dormice bred for UK conservation and reintroduction programs. Nine mice were weighed and anesthetized using tiny face masks delivering gas, allowing veterinarians to meticulously monitor their health and growth. Dormouse populations have declined by 70% in Britain since 2000, making these conservation efforts critically important.
Historical Innovations and Modern Challenges
Over its two centuries, ZSL veterinarians have pioneered numerous advances in animal healthcare. The zoo's first "medical attendant," Charles Spooner, left some of the earliest written evidence of veterinary care in his journals. Herpetologist Joan Beauchamp Procter, appointed as the first female curator of reptiles and amphibians in 1923, revolutionized reptile care with her innovative enclosure designs.
Perhaps most significantly, Oliver Graham-Jones, Britain's first dedicated zoo veterinarian appointed in 1951, invented the handheld dart gun that allows safe administration of anesthesia from a distance - technology still used today for large, dangerous animals.
Modern procedures require immense coordination. Moving a sedated rhino demands more than a dozen veterinarians, nurses, and keepers, as anesthetized animals don't always collapse in convenient locations. When Kiburi, the 177kg patriarch of London Zoo's western lowland gorilla troop, required sedation for a CT scan and health check, security staff remained on high alert throughout the procedure.
The Mountain Chicken Frog: A Conservation Priority
While drawn to dramatic treatments of large, charismatic animals, Levene identified his favorite image as one showing four medical staff tending to a mountain chicken frog undergoing gallbladder surgery. These critically endangered amphibians can grow to 1kg, and only 21 were found in the wild during a 2023 census.
"I love the intent on their faces," says Levene. "It just shows the level of care and attention that goes into creatures large and small. They are all equal in the vets' eyes."
ZSL plays a key role in the Mountain Chicken Recovery Programme, working to understand wild challenges (primarily amphibian chytridiomycosis caused by a deadly microscopic fungus) while breeding the species in captivity to increase their numbers.
Daily Operations and Specialized Training
Each day at London Zoo's veterinary hospital begins with an 8 AM meeting shared via video link with the Whipsnade team. The Wildlife Health Services team reviews scheduled treatments ranging from inpatient procedures for serious conditions to routine inspections and medication administration.
General anesthesia is used for welfare, safety, and stress reduction. For trained animals that offer their tails through protected enclosure openings, anesthesia can be straightforward. Larger, more dangerous, or stubborn patients might require darts fired from air rifles - a technique pioneered at ZSL decades ago.
The zoo's veterinary residency program attracts dedicated professionals like Harriet Woodhall, who recently began a three-year training program. "I've had to upheave my life, and my partner's life!" Woodhall admits. "If you're not willing to make the sacrifices in pay and time off and life outside of work, then I can understand why people give it up."
Most zoo veterinarians begin in traditional small-animal practice, building surgical and clinical skills before applying them to the dizzying array of species found in zoo settings.
Pathology and Conservation Science
Simon Spiro, possibly the UK's only full-time zoo pathologist and "possibly the only one in Europe," leads a department vital to ZSL's scientific mission. His team determines causes of death for every animal that dies at London and Whipsnade zoos, both for regulatory compliance and scientific transparency.
"The vets are diagnosing animals, they're treating animals. They need to know if they're correct," Spiro explains. "It's one thing to make a diagnosis... but until you have the pathology, until you have the results of the postmortem, you can't really know for sure."
This work contributes to research programs monitoring zoonotic diseases, developing animal welfare understanding, and informing governmental policy. "ZSL is a conservation organization, and conservation is fundamentally about stopping animals from dying," Spiro emphasizes. "If you don't understand why they're dying there's no way you can do that."
Beyond Entertainment: ZSL's Scientific Mission
London Zoo represents far more than public entertainment. Founded 200 years ago by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles "for the advancement of zoology and animal physiology," ZSL maintains scientific research and conservation as its core mission.
"The zoo was started as a scientific organization to study animals," says ZSL's head veterinarian Amanda Guthrie. "It wasn't originally intended to be open to the public... The zoo was never intended to be a place of entertainment. It was primarily for the scientific study of animals and it stayed that way."
ZSL contributes to global conservation through outreach, education, research, protection, preservation, and reintroduction of endangered species. The organization collaborates with multiple domestic and international partners, contributes to wildlife disease risk analysis with Natural England, and provides data to the global Zoological Information Management System database.
"We follow animals in the zoo from birth until death, we keep detailed records, and we do a full postmortem investigation when they die," Guthrie explains. "We understand every single aspect of their life. We get to learn new stuff every day, so the fulfilling and rewarding part of this job is to contribute to the science and knowledge that, in 30 years, someone can refer back to what we've discovered or described, and it'll benefit those animals in the future."
After taking approximately 50,000 photographs over his year-long project, Levene emerged with profound appreciation for both the animals and their caretakers. The texture of a lion's tongue, the weight of its paw, the focused intensity of veterinarians performing delicate surgery on a tiny frog - these experiences revealed the extraordinary dedication required to maintain the health of Earth's most vulnerable creatures.
