Edinburgh Zoo Edinburgh Zoo News 2015

Hi all

I am hoping to visit Edinburgh Zoo in a few weeks time and just wondered roughly how long a visit takes. I know everyone takes a different amount of time, but are we roughly going to need all day, half a day, or a couple of hours?

Thanks for any advice

 

I managed to see the whole zoo in an afternoon, while stopping for lunch and a cuppa. I only just saw everything, so I would recommend you plan to habe a whole day there, then just take your time (as it is on a massive hill, so might want to take it slow ). Just factor in doubling back on yourself, as the area near the hippos and rhinos is a bit of a maze.

 

I was informed by a regular visitor on Thursday that the zoo plans to go out of Stellar's Sea Eagles in the next couple of months. This is supposedly down to the visitor complaints that the enclosure is too small and they're being transferred to a specialist UK collection which has previously bred them (which I strongly suspects means Newent/IBPC). Members who are familiar with both collections will sense some irony in the above statement (not a diss of Newent).

As an annual visitor I can see where some members' current complaints about the collection and it's direction are coming from. Whilst there still remains a fair number of good elements the place is looking worse, in many ways, than I've seen it in around a decade of visiting. The place is a real curate's egg and there's little evidence (in terms of new developments) of any significant profits being made from the Pandas.

I fear the place is probably in a similar cycle to Twycross and Marwell in that it's needed to change for a while but has probably delayed it due to there being little local "competition" to provide strong impetus to do so. Where it is in that cycle I have no idea (maybe it's at it's nadir and about to improve or it may not have yet reached it)?

 

Any word on what will replace the Eagles?

 

Unfortunately the individual I spoke to had no knowledge of this.

 

You haven't dealt with the public much, have you? I would not be at all surprised if they were simultaneously getting complaints it was too big and too small! We humans are a contrary bunch.

 

Does anyone know how many leucistic penguins the zoo houses ?

 

There are 3 leucistic gentoos, a male and his 2 chicks that hatched this year.

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

i will also confirm that the eagles will be leaving, when I cannot say, and with no plans to replace them.

There are three leucistic gentoos, Snowflake of course, and his two chicks (he bred with a very far off granddaughter as I recall, but so far off that genetically in terms of negative effects of incest, it's not a problem).

 

If it wasn't for the HWP I'd be seriously thinking about letting our membership lapse. They'll probably stick an anamatronic Loch Ness Monster in there

 

Well I have heard of plans for that enclosure so lets just wait and see...

 

Well I don't think it's depressing so probably not...

 

I remain optimistic, even though I have been let down in the past. With no cub and dinos leaving in november, it will be interesting to see how it does over the winter time, since dinos are overtly the big attraction at the moment.

 

Going back to the Panda issue, and I don`t know whether this is the case with Edinburgh`s pandas, but the Chinese have loaned a pair to a Malaysian Zoo, in a ten year agreement, and will have to pay the Chinese 600,000 US dollars (equivalent) for any cubs born, and return any cubs to China after they become two years old!

 

Not heard about a bounty on a cub, but returning any cubs to China is a term of the Edinburgh deal

 

Same with almost any other pandas born outside of pandas born in China who's parents were lent to other zoos.