London Zoo removes last artwork from Banksy’s animal series | Banksy

Painted on a shutter at the entrance to London Zoo, the mural shows a powerful gorilla lifting the metal barrier, leaving a dark hole just big enough for other animals to quickly escape.

Now Banksy’s ninth and final work of art from his London series with animal motifs has also disappeared. The 196-year-old zoo wanted to “appropriately preserve” a “significant moment” in its history.

The zoo had previously warned visitors on social media that it planned to remove the artwork from public display on Friday evening “in order to keep it safe and make the most of our entrance during the busy summer season,” telling people: “We are still working out exactly what we will do with it.”

The work was replaced with a replica and a sign reading “Banksy woz ere” was put up nearby to prevent the entrance from being crowded with fans of the anonymous artist who turned out in droves after the work was unveiled on Tuesday.

The shutter at the entrance had remained closed since then so that visitors could admire Banksy’s work, which shows a watchful gorilla helping a sea lion, several birds and bats and three other mysterious animals – represented only by their three pairs of glowing eyes – escape to Camden.

In a blog posted Thursday, Kathryn England, the zoo’s chief executive, publicly thanked Banksy for stenciling his artwork on the zoo’s shutters, calling it “a significant moment in our history that we are keen to preserve.”

She added: “We are thrilled by the joy this artwork has already brought to so many people, but most of all we are incredibly grateful to Banksy for putting wildlife in the spotlight.”

By Friday evening, zoo officials had used a Plexiglas cover to “protect it from the bright sun.”

Two other pieces in the series, which have been on display across London since August 5, have been defaced, including silhouettes of elephants in Edith Grove in Chelsea.

The Metropolitan Police were called to a theft investigation after the fourth image, showing a howling wolf on a satellite dish, was removed just hours after it appeared.

The sixth work, depicting a stretching cat on a billboard, was dismantled by three men hired for safety reasons. The billboard’s owner later said the work would be reinstalled in an art gallery.

Last week, a spokesman for Banksy told the Observer that the artist hoped the uplifting nature of the works would “cheer people up with a moment of unexpected amusement, while gently underlining the human capacity for creative play rather than destruction and negativity.”