Edinburgh Zoo Edinburgh Zoo News 2021

A Crowdfunder has been launched by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) to give animal lovers the chance to enjoy exciting experiences at Edinburgh Zoo and help the wildlife conservation charity recover from the closure of its parks.

Eco-brand The Cheeky Panda have donated £50,000 to the Crowdfunder, with all funds raised being used to feed the zoo’s animals:

Edinburgh Zoo launches Crowdfunder with The Cheeky Panda on National Panda Day | Edinburgh Zoo
 
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) is celebrating the birth of three Asian small-clawed otter pups, born at Edinburgh Zoo in January. The youngsters recently received their first health check where it was confirmed they are two boys and a girl.

Keepers at the wildlife conservation charity have drawn up a shortlist of names for the new arrivals which will be put to a public vote on the zoo's Facebook page.

Andrew Laing, senior animal keeper at Edinburgh Zoo, said, “We are delighted to welcome Barry and Luna’s first litter, who are all doing well so far.

“There are three sets of names we are asking our supporters to choose from, Kadassa, Malang and Han, which are the names of rivers in Asia, Nadi, Sungai and River, which are words that mean river or Eden, Clyde and Garry which are the names of Scottish rivers. We are excited to see which set of names win the vote on our Facebook page.”

Otterly adorable pups receive first health check at Edinburgh Zoo | Edinburgh Zoo
 
Some updates from the Zoo this morning:

  • 0.0.1 Kirks Dik Dik born last week
  • Over 20 Gentoo eggs laid, 14 Rockhopper eggs laid
  • Lion cubs are now separated, awaiting moves to other collections. The moves have been held up due to Covid.
  • 5.0 Giraffes due to arrive by the end of April/start of May
  • The female Margay has been moved to another collection
  • One of the "domed" enclosures at the side of the Monkey House has been demolished.
 
Shorts said:
A near 20% increase, that's impressive (though I still think the numbers are low-ish) -any theories why the jump in 2019?
Click to expand...

Quick recap of the main 2019 news stories that likely generated visits:

January 2019 - Koala Joey, female Sun Bear arrived
February 2019 - Tapir born
March 2019 - New male Indian Rhino arrived
September 2019 - Lion cubs born, red panda born, new Giant Panda enclosure opened

They also had the lantern light show during the winter months which would have increased visitor numbers.
 
Quincey said:
Visitor numbers for last year have been revealed, 335,625 which is a 45% drop from 2019 due to the pandemic:

Edinburgh's botanic gardens topple castle in visitor rankings
Click to expand...

Shorts said:
This implies visitor numbers of 610,228 for 2019 -how does that stack up to (recent) historical numbers? It doesn't seem much for a capital city zoo with Giant Pandas.
Click to expand...

Quincey said:
The 2018 Annual report advised visitor numbers for 2018 of 510,000 which was a 2% decrease from 2017.

https://www.rzss.org.uk/media/7244/...ments-for-the-year-ended-31-december-2018.pdf

So it would appear there was a substantial increase of visitors in 2019.
Click to expand...

Shorts said:
A near 20% increase, that's impressive (though I still think the numbers are low-ish) -any theories why the jump in 2019?
Click to expand...

Someone's made a pretty serious mathematical error when calculating the percentage drop - according to the 2019 annual report they actually saw a total of 529,000 visitors in 2019, a 4% increase on 2018 they attribute to the opening of the new panda enclosure and a "brick live oceans event".

So there has actually been a 36.5% decrease, not 45%.... but the non-pandemic visitor figures for, as you say, a "capital city zoo with giant pandas" are even lower than you thought!

To answer your other question, somewhere on here I've posted figures of just how far visitor numbers have dropped in the last decade - will see if I can root those out.
 
Quincey said:
Some updates from the Zoo this morning:

  • 0.0.1 Kirks Dik Dik born last week
  • Over 20 Gentoo eggs laid, 14 Rockhopper eggs laid
  • Lion cubs are now separated, awaiting moves to other collections. The moves have been held up due to Covid.
  • 5.0 Giraffes due to arrive by the end of April/start of May
  • The female Margay has been moved to another collection
  • One of the "domed" enclosures at the side of the Monkey House has been demolished.
Click to expand...

Quite the mixed bag of news to be sure. I was never lucky enough to see the margay after it moved, sad I won't have that chance.
Was the dome enclosure that was destroyed the one used by the drills just across the road from the old eagles/wild dog area? I know there is another similar one at the opposite end of the house but I can't picture it. If it was the one the drills use, is that perhaps an indication that they're going to move in with the L'Hoest's sometime soon? That hasn't happened yet, has it?
 
Scottish Wildcat said:
Quite the mixed bag of news to be sure. I was never lucky enough to see the margay after it moved, sad I won't have that chance.
Was the dome enclosure that was destroyed the one used by the drills just across the road from the old eagles/wild dog area? I know there is another similar one at the opposite end of the house but I can't picture it. If it was the one the drills use, is that perhaps an indication that they're going to move in with the L'Hoest's sometime soon? That hasn't happened yet, has it?
Click to expand...

The house had 2 domes, exactly the same as far as I could tell, on either side of the house. The Drills are still using the enclosure on the right side of the house (as you enter the house). The dome the Drills use is now off show behind the walkway to what was the Panda enclosure.

The Dome closer to the L'Hoest's enclosure is the one that has been demolished.
 
Quincey said:
Some updates from the Zoo this morning:

  • 0.0.1 Kirks Dik Dik born last week
  • Over 20 Gentoo eggs laid, 14 Rockhopper eggs laid
  • Lion cubs are now separated, awaiting moves to other collections. The moves have been held up due to Covid.
  • 5.0 Giraffes due to arrive by the end of April/start of May
  • The female Margay has been moved to another collection
  • One of the "domed" enclosures at the side of the Monkey House has been demolished.
Click to expand...
Shame about the Margay, that's one of the more unique and interesting species to leave unfortunately. Do we know what species/sub-species of Giraffe they are? Rothschild's I assume.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Someone's made a pretty serious mathematical error when calculating the percentage drop - according to the 2019 annual report they actually saw a total of 529,000 visitors in 2019, a 4% increase on 2018 they attribute to the opening of the new panda enclosure and a "brick live oceans event".

So there has actually been a 36.5% decrease, not 45%.... but the non-pandemic visitor figures for, as you say, a "capital city zoo with giant pandas" are even lower than you thought!

To answer your other question, somewhere on here I've posted figures of just how far visitor numbers have dropped in the last decade - will see if I can root those out.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave, so in summary someone at RZSS either struggles to compare consistent figures or can't calculate percentages or yourself and Quincy are looking at different Annual Reports or pulling different numbers from the same Annual Reports. Given there are numerous ways to calculate visitor numbers one cynically wonders if there might be political reasons for choosing a calculation method to end up with a large percentage decrease. Alternative explanations may be available.
 
Shorts said:
or yourself and Quincy are looking at different Annual Reports or pulling different numbers from the same Annual Reports.
Click to expand...

Well, we are posting information from different reports - Quincy posted the 2018 figures from the relevant RZSS annual report, and I posted the 2019 figures from the relevant RZSS annual report :p so the disparity is between the 2019 figures provided by RZSS, and the 2020 figures provided by ALVA ( Association of Leading Visitor Attractions) which claim a 45% drop in visitor numbers compared to 2019.
 
Got some relevant screenshots together for direct comparison, along with information gleaned from news reports:

2009

Per the below, c. 606,900 visitors.

2010

Figures in screenshot below (stating a 2% drop from 2010 to 2011) suggest total visitor count in 2010 was c. 546,900. An article on the Times website indicates this was a 10% drop - around 60,000 visitors fewer - from 2009 figures, something which is blamed on the recession at the time.

2011

upload_2021-4-6_22-23-1.png

See below - total visitor count stated as being 536,000.

2012

upload_2021-4-6_22-16-7.png

2013

upload_2021-4-6_22-15-8.png

2014

upload_2021-4-6_22-13-30.png

2015

upload_2021-4-6_22-12-10.png
2016

upload_2021-4-6_22-10-58.png

2017

upload_2021-4-6_22-9-47.png

2018

upload_2021-4-6_22-7-32.png

2019

upload_2021-4-6_22-8-38.png

So, after an initial surge in visitor numbers after the arrival of the Giant Pandas, visitor numbers have been plummeting year-on-year with only a slight boost in 2019, which even then failed to match the figures from the recession a decade ago :(
 

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Last edited:
Quincey said:
Lion cubs are now separated, awaiting moves to other collections. The moves have been held up due to Covid.
Click to expand...
So where are they all being kept?

Also does anyone know if they’ve moved the new chimp in with the group yet? If not he’s been alone for quite a while.
 
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