I made a couple of visits to the zoo recently and unfortunately I wasn’t very impressed. This isn’t a comprehensive review, rather my thoughts on what struck me (mostly negatively).
I thought a lot about how to write this and if to write it at all because I don’t want to bash a place for the sake of it, especially a place I am genuinely fond of. I want to be supportive of good zoos and for this to be as constructive as possible. For this reason I decided not to include photos. Although they did not show any animal welfare issues (I didn’t see any) they wouldn’t show the zoo in its best light.
I hadn’t been to the zoo for around ten years. All my recent zoo visits have been in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries and Edinburgh does not compare favourably with any of these. I stress it isn’t a bad zoo and I didn’t see anything that raised concerns about welfare. My criticisms regard the overall package and state of the zoo and are rooted in concern and disappointment. Like seeing an old friend who for some reason, just isn’t looking after themselves anymore.
I should stress that I don’t like zoos with excessive theming. My favourite zoos are places like Basel, Dählhölzli, Alpenzoo and Korkeasaari. I like a tidy, serious zoo with a clear sense of what it does and why. My comments aren’t based on complaining that Edinburgh isn’t what it isn’t, so to speak. I don’t expect wooded paddocks to suddenly lose their basic fences for mock rock hot wired moats and waterfalls. This isn’t California and I don’t want it to be California. I want Edinburgh to be Edinburgh. But it’s not even doing a very good job of that.
A zoo in this climate and latitude is not going to look its best mid-winter. But there’s sadly a general air of neglect about the place. Rusty fence posts covered in algae, scruffy looking wire, torn mesh, peeling paint, not to mention empty enclosures and gaps where I know enclosures used to be. I won’t address the shrinking collection in great detail here, rather the site that is left behind. And it feels very much left behind.
Edinburgh zoo has a wonderful location with enormous potential but it is often so untidy in terms of infrastructure. It seems there is little eye for detail and very little sense of polish or finesse about the place.
This isn’t always a question of money. Let’s take the koala viewing corridor as an example. An (interactive?) interpretive sign has been covered - but only partially - with plywood. Presumably because it was broken or was considered a covid transmission risk. Could the right size piece of wood not be found? It could have been completely covered with some simple, basic temporary signage at very little cost. To be fair an A4 notice about the koala’s eye injury has now been pinned on to it. But it still looks abandoned, neglected, scruffy. And unnecessarily so. It could easily be addressed at presumably little cost. But for some reason, it hasn’t.
At every window in the viewing corridor the concrete is chipped and the paint peeling. It looks dreadful. Could this not be fixed? In the main viewing area of the koala house an ad hoc barrier has been formed of plant pots, some kind of rock and a retractable belt barrier that doesn't reach across the full length of the windows. Again, it’s a mess. It looks like some random objects have been left there. Some random objects have been left there. Could a more permanent and less unsightly solution not be found to address the real need to keep people away from the glass?
These are the only koalas in Scotland and only one other zoo in the UK has them but they are presented in a tired, cluttered and frankly shabby building.
Speaking of unique species with disappointing accommodation…
The giant panda panda enclosure has some pros but many cons in my opinion. I find the layout baffling. Firstly it has cross-views. You look across the enclosure and see other zoo visitors looking back at you. In an older part of the zoo this would be understandable but in a purpose built 21st century enclosure this is just sloppy and - crucially - easily avoided.
There’s a lot of walking. You walk along to the indoor dens which is a dead-end so you then go back and up and back in the same direction again to look down towards where you were before. The entire concept, layout and construction seems to be poorly thought out despite it being custom built and recently so. If you are by the indoor viewing and a panda is inside and then goes outside you might have a long walk all the way around to the other side of the paddock to see it. By which time it could be back inside.
There’s no sense of journey, of discovery, of a cohesive experience. And I don’t mean immersion or theming. I don’t mean pretending you’re in China. I just mean one path that takes you along the enclosures without back tracking and seeing more of other visitors than pandas.
The climbing structures are clunky and ugly. Could nothing more naturalistic be sourced within budget? And it’s a shame because the natural environment within the enclosures is quite lovely. The ubiquitous wire deer fencing is no doubt economical but renders decent photography uninterrupted by barriers difficult for the average visitor. It’s also hard to take pictures of the pandas in their inside dens (viewed from outside) as the screens sheltering the small viewing areas are limited and reflections are terrible.
I won’t get into the economics or wisdom of keeping the pandas as I don’t know enough to make an informed comment but they were clearly popular with the visitors who were there. The viewing areas were always busy with excited visitors.
At the top of the enclosure the former savannah lookout walkway has pandas on one side (does a panda ever make it up to this part of the enclosure I wonder. It would be great if they do take advantage of the space) and zebras on the other. I’d like to think there are solid husbandry reasons for keeping the zebras in this rocky paddock and I appreciate that Edinburgh isn’t geographically zoned but to me this windy hilltop seems to be crying out for something like a herd of takin which would nicely complement the pandas. Or Przewalski’s horses. Which are over by the giraffes. From Africa. A swap with the zebras seems an obvious choice but what do I know? It feels like a missed opportunity to present the pandas in the wider context of Asian wildlife or, in the case of the horses, also another narrative of zoos being instrumental in saving a species from extinction.
The lowland nyala are kept in a nearby paddock with a distinctively highland feel - I think takin used to be here. There is a strange sort of cave-like shelter made out of, amongst other things, what looks like old fence panels. The Chinese goral down the hill has something similar but at least that’s been covered in turf. I get that it is economical and sustainable but it looks like something left out for the council to take away or the beginnings of a bonfire. It’s scruffy and shabby.
The giraffe house is broadly well done given the constraints faced by the zoo and very much a positive development but there is a sign by the entrance saying stay on the path. People clearly do not stay on the path because leaving it slightly allows viewing of the giraffes if they are on the hard standing to the side of the house. So why design the path and enclosure like this?
Many buildings are showing their age. The pebble dashed hippo and cassowary house looks like a 1960s municipal park toilet block. I’m being picky here, I admit. I’d be more forgiving if the view of the pygmy hippo paddock as a whole didn’t feature a shed, copious amounts of old metal fencing and no-access chains in bright red and white. The whole thing is an eye-sore. Inside the house the tegu enclosure features a “Little tikes” plastic paddling pool shaped like a turtle. It’s like something from a rundown animal sanctuary. Really inexcusable.
The nearby enclosures for rhino and porcupine are aesthetically messy to say the least. Again, I’m not calling for immersive theming or architectural showcases but so many buildings are just tired and aged and frankly unattractive with lots of heavy visible bars, railings, ramps and walls which are simply ugly and intrusive.
The red panda enclosure is another good example of clunky infrastructure with the keeper access gate fenced off in a large box-like structure taking up a huge amount of space in a very limited viewing area. I know you can’t just change something like this overnight but it’s one of a multitude of small details which together add up to a very messy feel.
Rocks by the path alongside the lion enclosure are roped off with a rope barrier that is, again, ugly and intrusive. If the public must indeed be protected from this dangerous landscape, could it not be done with something more attractive and in-keeping with the surrounding environment?
Far too much of the zoo looks like something you might expect from a privately owned country collection that is only just getting by, perhaps recently taken over by well-intentioned but overstretched plucky amateurs.
Paved footpaths are often uneven and poorly maintained. There’s chicken wire and temporary metal fencing all over the place. Traffic cones pop up here and there. Autumn leaves and pine needles get stuck in wire fences and aren’t removed. I should add I did see at least two staff members going around picking up litter.
Budongo is good in many ways but is already showing signs of wear and tear in the public areas. I’m not a chimp fan so admittedly I didn’t linger. As you leave the building there’s a garden shed to the side. It looks messy and amateurish. No doubt it has a useful and important function but can it be hidden somehow? Not with mock rock or a fake African village but maybe a stand of bamboo or even a wattle fence. It's not the worst thing I saw but again, it's about a holistic approach to the appearance of the site and an attention to detail.
Up by the giraffes a service building and metal shipping container are directly next to the path. The building I could forgive but the container? It also has what looked like a dismantled metal gate propped up against it. Again, it’s a mess. Nearby is still a peeling sign board by the top paddock fence. It looks shabby and abandoned. It is shabby and abandoned. Why isn’t it just removed?
The main sign with a penguin outside the entrance needs a good wash…
Some positives... the zoo’s marketing around Edinburgh is excellent. On buses in particular, many of which are decorated entirely with a single species (with a wide variety included) and related slogan. This is all very impressive and creates a real impression of a zoo at the heart of the city’s life. And it’s something people in the city have commented on.
The staff members and volunteers I met or interacted with were lovely. Friendly, kind and helpful. Really impressive.
There are some nice murals and signage.
Edinburgh is a major city, a significant European capital with an international outlook. It is a cultural and historic destination in its own right and a springboard for tourist experiences and travels in the rest of Scotland. It deserves a zoo which reflects this status. At the moment it doesn’t have that and sadly I don’t have much confidence in it getting it.
I’ll conclude with a quote from David Attenborough posted at the zoo entrance:
“Edinburgh Zoo has shown not only what zoos can be, but also what they should be”.
Sigh.
I thought a lot about how to write this and if to write it at all because I don’t want to bash a place for the sake of it, especially a place I am genuinely fond of. I want to be supportive of good zoos and for this to be as constructive as possible. For this reason I decided not to include photos. Although they did not show any animal welfare issues (I didn’t see any) they wouldn’t show the zoo in its best light.
I hadn’t been to the zoo for around ten years. All my recent zoo visits have been in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries and Edinburgh does not compare favourably with any of these. I stress it isn’t a bad zoo and I didn’t see anything that raised concerns about welfare. My criticisms regard the overall package and state of the zoo and are rooted in concern and disappointment. Like seeing an old friend who for some reason, just isn’t looking after themselves anymore.
I should stress that I don’t like zoos with excessive theming. My favourite zoos are places like Basel, Dählhölzli, Alpenzoo and Korkeasaari. I like a tidy, serious zoo with a clear sense of what it does and why. My comments aren’t based on complaining that Edinburgh isn’t what it isn’t, so to speak. I don’t expect wooded paddocks to suddenly lose their basic fences for mock rock hot wired moats and waterfalls. This isn’t California and I don’t want it to be California. I want Edinburgh to be Edinburgh. But it’s not even doing a very good job of that.
A zoo in this climate and latitude is not going to look its best mid-winter. But there’s sadly a general air of neglect about the place. Rusty fence posts covered in algae, scruffy looking wire, torn mesh, peeling paint, not to mention empty enclosures and gaps where I know enclosures used to be. I won’t address the shrinking collection in great detail here, rather the site that is left behind. And it feels very much left behind.
Edinburgh zoo has a wonderful location with enormous potential but it is often so untidy in terms of infrastructure. It seems there is little eye for detail and very little sense of polish or finesse about the place.
This isn’t always a question of money. Let’s take the koala viewing corridor as an example. An (interactive?) interpretive sign has been covered - but only partially - with plywood. Presumably because it was broken or was considered a covid transmission risk. Could the right size piece of wood not be found? It could have been completely covered with some simple, basic temporary signage at very little cost. To be fair an A4 notice about the koala’s eye injury has now been pinned on to it. But it still looks abandoned, neglected, scruffy. And unnecessarily so. It could easily be addressed at presumably little cost. But for some reason, it hasn’t.
At every window in the viewing corridor the concrete is chipped and the paint peeling. It looks dreadful. Could this not be fixed? In the main viewing area of the koala house an ad hoc barrier has been formed of plant pots, some kind of rock and a retractable belt barrier that doesn't reach across the full length of the windows. Again, it’s a mess. It looks like some random objects have been left there. Some random objects have been left there. Could a more permanent and less unsightly solution not be found to address the real need to keep people away from the glass?
These are the only koalas in Scotland and only one other zoo in the UK has them but they are presented in a tired, cluttered and frankly shabby building.
Speaking of unique species with disappointing accommodation…
The giant panda panda enclosure has some pros but many cons in my opinion. I find the layout baffling. Firstly it has cross-views. You look across the enclosure and see other zoo visitors looking back at you. In an older part of the zoo this would be understandable but in a purpose built 21st century enclosure this is just sloppy and - crucially - easily avoided.
There’s a lot of walking. You walk along to the indoor dens which is a dead-end so you then go back and up and back in the same direction again to look down towards where you were before. The entire concept, layout and construction seems to be poorly thought out despite it being custom built and recently so. If you are by the indoor viewing and a panda is inside and then goes outside you might have a long walk all the way around to the other side of the paddock to see it. By which time it could be back inside.
There’s no sense of journey, of discovery, of a cohesive experience. And I don’t mean immersion or theming. I don’t mean pretending you’re in China. I just mean one path that takes you along the enclosures without back tracking and seeing more of other visitors than pandas.
The climbing structures are clunky and ugly. Could nothing more naturalistic be sourced within budget? And it’s a shame because the natural environment within the enclosures is quite lovely. The ubiquitous wire deer fencing is no doubt economical but renders decent photography uninterrupted by barriers difficult for the average visitor. It’s also hard to take pictures of the pandas in their inside dens (viewed from outside) as the screens sheltering the small viewing areas are limited and reflections are terrible.
I won’t get into the economics or wisdom of keeping the pandas as I don’t know enough to make an informed comment but they were clearly popular with the visitors who were there. The viewing areas were always busy with excited visitors.
At the top of the enclosure the former savannah lookout walkway has pandas on one side (does a panda ever make it up to this part of the enclosure I wonder. It would be great if they do take advantage of the space) and zebras on the other. I’d like to think there are solid husbandry reasons for keeping the zebras in this rocky paddock and I appreciate that Edinburgh isn’t geographically zoned but to me this windy hilltop seems to be crying out for something like a herd of takin which would nicely complement the pandas. Or Przewalski’s horses. Which are over by the giraffes. From Africa. A swap with the zebras seems an obvious choice but what do I know? It feels like a missed opportunity to present the pandas in the wider context of Asian wildlife or, in the case of the horses, also another narrative of zoos being instrumental in saving a species from extinction.
The lowland nyala are kept in a nearby paddock with a distinctively highland feel - I think takin used to be here. There is a strange sort of cave-like shelter made out of, amongst other things, what looks like old fence panels. The Chinese goral down the hill has something similar but at least that’s been covered in turf. I get that it is economical and sustainable but it looks like something left out for the council to take away or the beginnings of a bonfire. It’s scruffy and shabby.
The giraffe house is broadly well done given the constraints faced by the zoo and very much a positive development but there is a sign by the entrance saying stay on the path. People clearly do not stay on the path because leaving it slightly allows viewing of the giraffes if they are on the hard standing to the side of the house. So why design the path and enclosure like this?
Many buildings are showing their age. The pebble dashed hippo and cassowary house looks like a 1960s municipal park toilet block. I’m being picky here, I admit. I’d be more forgiving if the view of the pygmy hippo paddock as a whole didn’t feature a shed, copious amounts of old metal fencing and no-access chains in bright red and white. The whole thing is an eye-sore. Inside the house the tegu enclosure features a “Little tikes” plastic paddling pool shaped like a turtle. It’s like something from a rundown animal sanctuary. Really inexcusable.
The nearby enclosures for rhino and porcupine are aesthetically messy to say the least. Again, I’m not calling for immersive theming or architectural showcases but so many buildings are just tired and aged and frankly unattractive with lots of heavy visible bars, railings, ramps and walls which are simply ugly and intrusive.
The red panda enclosure is another good example of clunky infrastructure with the keeper access gate fenced off in a large box-like structure taking up a huge amount of space in a very limited viewing area. I know you can’t just change something like this overnight but it’s one of a multitude of small details which together add up to a very messy feel.
Rocks by the path alongside the lion enclosure are roped off with a rope barrier that is, again, ugly and intrusive. If the public must indeed be protected from this dangerous landscape, could it not be done with something more attractive and in-keeping with the surrounding environment?
Far too much of the zoo looks like something you might expect from a privately owned country collection that is only just getting by, perhaps recently taken over by well-intentioned but overstretched plucky amateurs.
Paved footpaths are often uneven and poorly maintained. There’s chicken wire and temporary metal fencing all over the place. Traffic cones pop up here and there. Autumn leaves and pine needles get stuck in wire fences and aren’t removed. I should add I did see at least two staff members going around picking up litter.
Budongo is good in many ways but is already showing signs of wear and tear in the public areas. I’m not a chimp fan so admittedly I didn’t linger. As you leave the building there’s a garden shed to the side. It looks messy and amateurish. No doubt it has a useful and important function but can it be hidden somehow? Not with mock rock or a fake African village but maybe a stand of bamboo or even a wattle fence. It's not the worst thing I saw but again, it's about a holistic approach to the appearance of the site and an attention to detail.
Up by the giraffes a service building and metal shipping container are directly next to the path. The building I could forgive but the container? It also has what looked like a dismantled metal gate propped up against it. Again, it’s a mess. Nearby is still a peeling sign board by the top paddock fence. It looks shabby and abandoned. It is shabby and abandoned. Why isn’t it just removed?
The main sign with a penguin outside the entrance needs a good wash…
Some positives... the zoo’s marketing around Edinburgh is excellent. On buses in particular, many of which are decorated entirely with a single species (with a wide variety included) and related slogan. This is all very impressive and creates a real impression of a zoo at the heart of the city’s life. And it’s something people in the city have commented on.
The staff members and volunteers I met or interacted with were lovely. Friendly, kind and helpful. Really impressive.
There are some nice murals and signage.
Edinburgh is a major city, a significant European capital with an international outlook. It is a cultural and historic destination in its own right and a springboard for tourist experiences and travels in the rest of Scotland. It deserves a zoo which reflects this status. At the moment it doesn’t have that and sadly I don’t have much confidence in it getting it.
I’ll conclude with a quote from David Attenborough posted at the zoo entrance:
“Edinburgh Zoo has shown not only what zoos can be, but also what they should be”.
Sigh.
so that's actually a recent choice.
