Edinburgh Zoo Notes on a visit 6/8/12

I was booked in for the pandas for 10am, so stayed the night next door in the holiday inn, well worth staying overnight.

Some notes first.

One of the Egyptian vulture off-show in the flamingo house (my daughter spotted that one)

Illiger's macaw in the former Alaotran gentle lemur enclosure.

Sofus the Patagonian sealion, still there, though an open travelling crate is placed in his enclosure.

There is a pair of goral still at the zoo.

Swamp wallabies have taken over the majority of the Whitson woods area.

The purple faced langurs have gone.

The rock hyrax have left the zoo, whilst their enclosure is being used for the gentoo penguins,but they will be back.

4.0 nyala in the enclosure next to the banteng, the former bactrian camel paddock

2 Taiwan beauty snake on show in the former galago exhibit.

Only the Victorian crowned pigeons remain in the aviary in the koala house, everything else moved down to brilliant birds.

I missed the Asian lions and Guinea baboons in the middle of the hill, also noted the monkey house with a few empty enclosures, barest it has been for a long while, the drill group looked great, but the first visit i have ever had, without seeing a Diana monkey

Other no shows for me were, Hamlyn's monkey, aardwolf, golden cat, Kirk's dik dik and lesser Malayan chevrotain.

The weather was damp and muggy, but i have never seen the zoo look so green and lush.

Finally, my introduction to pandamania, left me underwhelmed, not the pandas themselves though, lovely animals the 2 of them, especially the male, according to guide, one of the largest in captivity.
The whole set up, left me feeling a little empty, starting of by queuing in the rain for 20 minutes, ushered in to the indoor house, complete with flaking paint, broken downlights and bits of Confuciousiana, lamely cut out from A4 and stuck to the wall, really took the shine off my first encounter with the superstars of the zoo world.
In that house there really should be stand off barriers from the glass too!!!
The outdoor areas are far superior, beautifully landscaped and full of furniture, space well used, the public area equally finished to a high quality.
Why then, the need to let visitors indoor?, in my opinion, there is no need, give them their privacy, coupled with the large visitor viewing area outside, what is the need for separate ticketed entrance to see the pandas.
Close the house to the public and keep the visitors moving through the outside areas, there is plenty of space out front to accommodate a good 150-200 visitors at a time moving through.
I'm guessing the ticketing procedure is a PR move by the zoo

Still and all a good day as always.

 

Rock hyrax are still in the zoo. They are in the offshow cages near the gelada (they can just be seen if you know where to look). They've been breeding too.
I've heard the maned wolves have gone-saw keepers in the enclosure getting them inside when I was there about a week ago-anyone know anymore about this?

 

Had it not been for the indoor viewing, when I went before Christmas nobody would've seen a panda. It is very cramped in there though, especially with everyone crowding the glass.

I always saw the maned wolves too and it was a lovely enclosure for them. They were there a couple of weeks ago, if they have left the collection since perhaps they're moving to HWP? I'll try to find out.

 

I made it to Edinbrough Zoo on 27th July, I got to see the pandas as the second batch! Certainly could clearly see them. They were lovely.

Kiang said a lot for me and I was intruigued by the changes being made for the penguins.

 

Any sign of any baby Chimps at Edinburgh yet? The amalgamated big group have been together some while now and some babies would really complete the social structure.

 

As far as i know there was a baby chimp born but it died shortly afterwards... alot of the chimps were in season and there were some mating the last time i was there... around 3 months ago... so i would expect there to be some baby chimps soon

 

I read online somewhere that it was 'Heleen' who had the baby but it didn't survive. They have taken one of the other older females who has bred before of contraception so they can try breeding from her.

 

They bred them once but they didn't survive. It's a shame they couldn't have had a female in return.

 

Diana Monkeys.

How many Diana Monkeys are there now left? On the Germany forums it was reported that Berlin TP received a single Diana Monkey from Edinburgh and another from PL.

 

Not necessarily, it could have been that they held a female that they couldn't breed with their male(e.g related,) , i think that was what Jordan meant.

 

I'll clear things up, I thought Berlin TP had at least one female, they received some of RSCC's old Aardwolfs. I was hoping Berlin TP would swap females if they were having a problem breeding successfully.

 

The painted hunting dogs have all been mixed together, so hopefully the zoo might have puppies soon.

 

I'm impressed... here's one UK zoo that seems to have a secure breeding population of these. I wish a few more places had numbers like that.

 

It would be useful to know what the actual number is at Edinburgh, but as far as I can see ISIS is no longer for public consumption.

 

Sumatran Tigers.

I read that 'Baginda' and 'Tibor' have been mixed? Were they mixed when you visited Kiang?

 

I think they were when I last went (2 weeks ago now). Certainly the 2 onshow cages were open, but I could only see the female at the time so wasn't sure.

 

Do you know when this was?