ZOO OPENING TIMES
We are open every day of the year, including Christmas Day, from 9am until:
| 6.00pm | April - September |
| 5.00pm | October & March |
| 4.30pm | November - February |
2009 Events
Find out what's happening
at the Zoo in 2009.
Events include owl flights,
wildlife lectures, quiz nights and
a wine tasting.
Breeding Programmes
Zoos - working collectively at national, regional and global levels - have a key role to play in the conservation of biodiversity through the management of captive populations of threatened species.
Extinction is forever
Without co-operative breeding programmes, many species would have been lost, including the Arabian oryx, the Przewalski’s wild horse, the black-footed ferret and the golden lion tamarin. For others, such as the partula snails of French Polynesia, some species now exist only as captive-bred populations, their wild counterparts having been driven to extinction by an introduced predator.
Conservation priorities
As animal enclosures in zoos tend to get larger, the total amount of space available for breeding programmes decreases, so the need to prioritise species for captive breeding and the importance of other ex situ conservation initiatives becomes ever greater. So species conservation is now carefully managed by zoo professionals working together at national, regional and global levels through Taxon Advisory Groups. These bring together the experts for each group of species, who decide the priorities and the necessary actions.
Genetic variability
One of the key requirements when managing animal populations in captivity is to maintain as much
genetic material as possible - in other words, to discourage the possibility of in-breeding between
animals which are closely related. To achieve this, all animals born in zoos today are entered into
‘studbook’ databases with details of each individual and its origin. Each studbook is managed
by an individual keeper of other zoo professional, and he or she will collate all the information
on that species whether it’s at the national, regional or global level.
Studbook recommendations
The studbook keeper is therefore ideally placed to make recommendations for animal
transfers, breeding and husbandry developments. Good zoos like Edinburgh always comply with
the recommendation of studbook keepers, even if this means – as it often does – that we are not
able to breed a particular species. This is why many animals in zoos today are on contraception or
even vasectomised, in order to prevent unwanted breeding.
Edinburgh Zoo currently holds the studbooks for Diana, L’Hoest's and Hamlyn's monkeys, and
king and gentoo penguins and Pallas cats. We are currently co-chairs of the primate and
hoofstock TWiG (Taxon Working Group) formerly known as Taxon Advisory Groups.