Edinburgh Zoo - Research and Conservation

Research and Conservation

Edinburgh Zoo is the national centre for primate behavioural research. Budongo Trail, a state-of-the-art chimpanzee enclosure, was opened in May 2008 by The Princess Royal. Budongo Trail is a naturalistic enclosure which can house up to 40 chimps. It includes a large outdoor area and three separate indoor areas for the chimps together with observation areas and a lecture theatre for the public. The RZSS is the principal sponsor in the long term study and conservation of a group of approximately 60 chimpanzees as part of the Budongo Conservation Field Station in Uganda, Africa. Amidst the opening of Budongo Trail, Jane Goodall described it as a "wonderful facility" where primates "are probably better off living in the wild in an area like Budongo, where one in six gets caught in a wire snare, and countries like Congo, where chimpanzees, monkeys and gorillas are shot for food commercially."

In addition to Budongo Trail, the Zoo is home to Living Links, a field station and research centre for the study of primates that was developed in a partnership with the University of St Andrews. Living Links houses capuchin monkeys and squirrel monkeys originating from the forests of South America, and offers researchers unique opportunities to study primate behaviour.

In July 2006, a cull of invasive brown rats on the Scottish island of Canna was deemed a provisional success and after two years of observation, during which time no rats were observed, the island was declared officially rat free by the Environment Minister, Mike Russell on 7 June 2008. The rats had been outcompeting the rare local wood mouse, known as the Canna mouse and also endangering local sea bird populations. The National Trust for Scotland which own the island invested £500,000 employing exterminators from New Zealand to cull the estimated 10,000 brown rats. in co-operation with RZSS, approximately 150 Canna Mice were captured and homed at Edinburgh Zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park. 40 mice were returned to the island in late 2006 with the remaining being re-introduced in stages.

In May 2008, a joint application submitted by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) was approved by the Scottish Government allowing for a trial reintroduction of the European beaver to the Knapdale Forest in Mid-Argyll. If the trial is successful then the European beaver will be the first mammal to be reintroduced to the United Kingdom. Beavers have been extinct in Scotland since the 16th century, when they were hunted for their pelt, meat and medicinal properties.

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