It is part of a European campaign to raise two million signatures against the business.

Clare Robinson, the zoo's head of education, says London is becoming a centre for the so-called 'bushmeat' trade.

"There's about a million tons of meat coming out of equatorial Africa every year. That's about the same as four million cows," she said.

Endangered species

"This is mostly going to parts of Africa, but it is also going to Europe and has now reached parts of Britain."

She said they were concerned because "in 30 years' time we could lose the big apes from central Africa and lots of other species as well".

This month Mobolaji Osakuade, 40, and his girlfriend Rose Kinnane, 35, were jailed for four months for selling bushmeat from their company in Dalston market.

The judge in the trial said this kind of trade threatened the future of endangered species.

Freezers full of wild animal meat, including antelope and squirrel, were found at their shop.