Edinburgh Zoo Edinburgh Zoo News 2023

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) are hosting a unique opportunity to visit Edinburgh Zoo after hours for a discounted price with ‘Sundown Saturdays’.

Visitors will enjoy an evening wander through the zoo and see how animals spend their time before sundown with extended opening hours until 9pm:

Explore Edinburgh Zoo after hours with ‘Sundown Saturdays’ | Edinburgh Zoo
 
Quincey said:
From posts on social media it appears that Edinburgh's male Sloth, Moana (Mo) has left for Paignton Zoo. A new male Sloth, Nico, has arrived from Isle of Wight Zoo.
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In a correction to this post, Nico actually arrived from Amazon World Zoo Park on the Isle of Wight, as opposed to Isle of Wight zoo, apologies for the error.
 
Drills are now in the second old Giant Panda exhibit (Yang Guangs outdoor), next to the Highland Red Panda's. There doesn't seem to be any changes to the exhibit from when it had the Panda's in, with the same climbing structures, and grass is rather overgrown. I did take some photos today, but not downloaded yet, so will add photos to gallery tomorrow morning, but they are on show and the barrier was removed to you can see them. There is no access to view them in the house. I briefly saw one outside, so not sure how many they have in total.

I was surprised to see they still had the Capuchin's in the old Monkey House, and the old outdoor exhibits, which have definitely seen better days.

Plenty of Gentoo Penguin chicks about and there was also a joey in one of the Swamp Wallabies.
 
Has anyone checked Edinburgh Zoo’s Twitter today? Looks like they’ve stepped on a bit of a minefield…

Personally I’m quite suprised about how much pushback they’ve gotten for it - but I do agree with some of the comments in saying that their most recent “post” is divisive and has nothing whatsoever to do with the zoo….
 
GeeZee said:
Has anyone checked Edinburgh Zoo’s Twitter today? Looks like they’ve stepped on a bit of a minefield…

Personally I’m quite suprised about how much pushback they’ve gotten for it - but I do agree with some of the comments in saying that their most recent “post” is divisive and has nothing whatsoever to do with the zoo….
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I had a look, and if you're talking about the pride month tweet, it doesn't seem that bad. Lots of businesses put out tweets and posts like that during pride month, and that tweet is nowhere near as egregious as some pride advertising I've seen.
 
Jambi said:
I had a look, and if you're talking about the pride month tweet, it doesn't seem that bad. Lots of businesses put out tweets and posts like that during pride month, and that tweet is nowhere near as egregious as some pride advertising I've seen.
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I think it's more the replies as opposed to the post generally. Though none of them appear to be particularly rude, insulting or directed at the people managing the account I doubt it's the response they expected. They posted the same thing on Instagram and got the complete opposite responses.
 
cerperal said:
I think it's more the replies as opposed to the post generally. Though none of them appear to be particularly rude, insulting or directed at the people managing the account I doubt it's the response they expected. They posted the same thing on Instagram and got the complete opposite responses.
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My point exactly , although on Twitter some people did say worst but I note they got banned/blocked deleted etc.

I should also add, it would seem that a number of the negative responses are ironically from the said community.

It’s not a bad thing for the zoo to promote for me personally, but I really do wish they would not make things political & divisive, Zoos are one of the few places I find that I can escape all that and generally they tend to unite people with a love of nature.
 
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GeeZee said:
Personally I’m quite suprised about how much pushback they’ve gotten for it - but I do agree with some of the comments in saying that their most recent “post” is divisive and has nothing whatsoever to do with the zoo….
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GeeZee said:
It’s not a bad thing for the zoo to promote for me personally, but I really do wish they would not make things political & divisive, Zoos are one of the few places I find that I can escape all that and generally they tend to unite people with a love of nature.
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Can I just check - are we considering a post of two photos of the zoo staff attending Edinburgh Pride and a generic inclusive message to be "divisive"?

Because the only way that's divisive is that it divides the decent people from the bigots very efficiently. It's simply not nice to treat people's mere existence and wish to be happy and loved as merely "political".

And it is to do with the zoo. It's to do with making all the zoo's staff and supporters feel valued as who they are, and that's more than justification for the post. And it's not even just Pridewashed rainbow merch being pushed - it's the zoo taking part in a local community event. If they'd sent staff to harvest festival or a carnival would it be "divisive"?

Frankly, if that's "divisive", I know very well which side I want to be "divided" onto - and I thank Edinburgh Zoo for posting it and hope they will stick with it.

I've just gone out of my way on Twitter to tell them so as well.
 
Maguari said:
Can I just check - are we considering a post of two photos of the zoo staff attending Edinburgh Pride and a generic inclusive message to be "divisive"?

Because the only way that's divisive is that it divides the decent people from the bigots very efficiently. It's simply not nice to treat people's mere existence and wish to be happy and loved as "political".

And it is to do with the zoo. It's to do with making all the zoo's staff and supporters feel valued as who they are, and that's more than justification for the post. And it's not even just Pridewashed rainbow merch being pushed - it's the zoo taking part in a local community event. If they'd sent staff to harvest festival or a carnival would it be "divisive"?

Frankly, if that's "divisive", I know very well which side I want to be "divided" onto - and I thank Edinburgh Zoo for posting it and hope they will stick with it.

I've just gone out of my way on Twitter to tell them so as well.
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Nope but judging by the replies it is divisive , like I said I am suprised by the pushback even though some of the responses are from the said community.

Some of them are probably bigoted , but some aren’t - they just don’t feel that it has anything to do with a zoo. Some have highlighted they weren’t so quick to do something for women’s day , international disabled day etc.
 
GeeZee said:
Nope but judging by the replies it is divisive , like I said I am suprised by the pushback even though some of the responses are from the said community.

Some of them are probably bigoted , but some aren’t - they just don’t feel that it has anything to do with a zoo. Some have highlighted they weren’t so quick to do something for women’s day , international disabled day etc.
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A zoo is not just animals, it is people too. And those people are important and their lives are valid to present on the organisation's public face as they would be anywhere.

I can't comment on the reasons why the zoo didn't mark other days, but most likely there was just a particularly keen group of staff wanting to mark this one. And on this occasion, there was a public event they attended and had pictures to share. The fact the zoo (or anyone) might have missed chances to be nice previously should not be being held up as a reason for them not to be nice in future.

We shouldn't base what we consider divisive on the reaction from people who are deliberately trying to stoke division - and we don't stop being nice to people because bad people don't like it.
 
Maguari said:
A zoo is not just animals, it is people too. And those people are important and their lives are valid to present on the organisation's public face as they would be anywhere.

I can't comment on the reasons why the zoo didn't mark other days, but most likely there was just a particularly keen group of staff wanting to mark this one. And on this occasion, there was a public event they attended and had pictures to share. The fact the zoo (or anyone) might have missed chances to be nice previously should not be being held up as a reason for them not to be nice in future.

We shouldn't base what we consider divisive on the reaction from people who are deliberately trying to stoke division - and we don't stop being nice to people because bad people don't like it.
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Generally I’d agree, but to those who don’t agree quite openly on Twitter arent bad for having their views.

Genuine question : Do those bad people include the LGBQT+ who have also commented “negatively”?

I could give many examples , some from my personal life too whereby a minority is “suppose” to go along with a certain narrative and can’t have an opinion otherwise.
 
GeeZee said:
Genuine question : Do those bad people include the LGBQT+ who have also commented “negatively”?

I could give many examples , some from my personal life too whereby a minority is “suppose” to go along with a certain narrative and can’t have an opinion otherwise.
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What is the "narrative" you are referring to here? It feels something is unspoken that makes it hard for me to respond. I suspect I know, but I don't want to assume.

And yes, I think people who think the zoo shouldn't post that are objectively wrong, regardless of who they are. I should by now be expecting any rhetorical touch to anything posted here to get treated as literal and picked apart but, to be clear, no, by referring to "bad people" in the abstract I am not saying that every negative comment came from an inherently bad person, but I do think they are objectively wrong on this, and that many of them are just bad people (homophobes, biphobes, transphobes - I suspect largely the latter based on recent hate trends) looking to stop people being in any way nice to LGBT+ people (and yes, that absolutely can include people who are themselves LGBT+).
 
GeeZee said:
Has anyone checked Edinburgh Zoo’s Twitter today? Looks like they’ve stepped on a bit of a minefield…

Personally I’m quite suprised about how much pushback they’ve gotten for it - but I do agree with some of the comments in saying that their most recent “post” is divisive and has nothing whatsoever to do with the zoo….
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It is worth noting that inclusion is a key value of RZSS. This is made very clear in the 2030 strategy and Pride participation is therefore very much to do with the Zoo and its role in the wider Edinburgh community.

https://www.rzss.org.uk/media/9234/strategy-web.pdf
 
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Shame that such a post - with such a positive message - attracts such a vile audience. Goodness me it's disheartening to think such people exist, and spend their finite time on this earth overcome by such hate.
Perhaps the person running the account has fanned the flames somewhat by engaging with many of the comments, but that's the only (mild) criticism. (their intentions are clearly very positive)

anyway, that's enough of twitter for a couple of days.
 
epickoala123 said:
Shame that such a post - with such a positive message - attracts such a vile audience. Goodness me it's disheartening to think such people exist, and spend their finite time on this earth overcome by such hate.
Perhaps the person running the account has fanned the flames somewhat by engaging with many of the comments, but that's the only (mild) criticism. (their intentions are clearly very positive)

anyway, that's enough of twitter for a couple of days.
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I agree, and they were blocking people (some from that community) and claiming that “he said she said” which is why we’ve blocked them (among other things).

I don’t agree with how they’ve engaged with so many comments, yet seldom seem to engage with members of the public (myself included in the past) if they have a genuine question or query about the zoo on Twitter (and if they do it’s a copy and paste).

I just hope it doesn’t bring any bad publicity to the zoo or puts anyone off going (which some commentators have said) that is all. There has been a number of instances of these sorts of things happening, for one reason or another and the reason why I’m even mentioning it is because this seem to be receiving significantly more traffic than most of their social media coverage.

Maybe some of you disagree with me, but I find the whole thing rather sad and it’s why I refer to my original comment about it being a minefield. I do think that in Scotland especially recently this is a bit of a political hot potato. This is my “home” zoo , I don’t want any controversy I just want to see it succeed.
 
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GeeZee said:
I just hope it doesn’t bring any bad publicity to the zoo or puts anyone off going (which some commentators have said) that is all. There has been a number of instances of these sorts of things happening, for one reason or another.
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Given the general consensus in Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland - which is incredibly progressive and accepting despite certain efforts to stoke culture wars - I am confident that this will be overwhelmingly positive for the zoo and only enhance its reputation.
 
GeeZee said:
I don’t agree with how they’ve engaged with so many comments, yet seldom seem to engage with members of the public (myself included in the past) if they have a genuine question or query about the zoo on Twitter (and if they do it’s a copy and paste).
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I would imagine that the (valiant) person running the Twitter account may know more about promotional events (incl. Pride) than the inner workings of the zoo, so fair enough in this case, I think.
 
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