“This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.”
― Alexander McCall Smith
I’m so sorry that it has taken me a while to rebound enough from my Edinburgh trip to give you guys an update. After getting sick literally on the flight back, turning another year older on Saturday, and catching up on work, it’s been tough to find much time to write about my experience!
For all of you who weren’t aware, I took off from Portland to the giant panda SSP (species survival plan) meeting that involved all of North American and EU zoos outside of China that hold giant pandas. It was the first meeting of its kind (North America has had similar meetings over the last couple of decades) and so involved lots of introductions to giant panda teams and updates on everyone’s research. Iain Valentine, head of the giant panda team at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo in conjunction with Ron Swaisgood from SDZ spear-headed the meeting. Most of the EU zoos have only recently acquired pandas so they’re at the learning stage and are busy enjoying their new pandas with thoughts of collaborations on the near horizon.
All of the meeting participants. Jeroen Jacobs from giantpandaglobal.com was nice enough to supply this group photo to me.
I consider myself a “newbie” to the panda field with just over 6 years of research experience under my belt but quickly realized that everything is relative! While I only have, at best, 1/4 of the experience of my US colleagues I actually have more than many of the newer EU zoos. I was also in a unique position of being on the “flip” side of all the zoos. Meaning that, while most zoos were struggling with how to contribute to giant panda research in a meaningful way with only two pandas at their facilities, I am fortunate to be conducting research on the ground in China with 80+ pandas. Thus, PDXWildlife and San Diego Zoo Global are in a unique research position where we can expand on and inform some of the pilot projects taking place at international zoos. I’m really looking forward to seeing how I can help integrate some smaller EU teams and collaborations into our research and it sounded like many facilities were excited for the chance to contribute as well! Nothing has solidified yet but emails are being exchanged and I look forward to updating you guys as collaborations become tangible.
I had never been in Edinburgh so was excited to take a quick bus tour around the city with Megan Owen and Ron Swaisgood from SDZ and Rebecca Snyder from Kansas City Zoo (formally with Zoo Atlanta as head of the panda team there). I quickly feel in love with Edinburgh which reminded me of Portland, at least weather wise and “personality” wise. Here are a couple of pictures I took during my tour.
First stop was the Royal Botanical Garden of Edinburgh:
The world famous botanical gardens with the most rhododendron species outside of China.
A beautiful succulent in their rock garden – can anyone ID this?
The famous glass house in the botanical garden
The gardens were so beautiful and we could have easily spent the whole day there but we decided to continue on to the other famous sites around Edinburgh:
St. Giles Cathedral
The tower at the top of Calton Hill.
The view of the castle and Old town from the top of Calton Hill.
We ended at the Royal Mile and Old Town leading up to Edinburgh Castle which houses St. Giles Cathedral (spectacular!) and had dinner at the Scotch Whisky Experience, where we tried some great scotches. After dinner we stumbled across Mercat Tours’ where we decided to do a last minute “Hidden and Haunted” ghost tour of the Edinburgh Vaults.
The view of Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street Gardens area.
The Royal Mile in Old Town leading up to Edinburgh Castle. Dr. Who anyone?
And, of course, I can’t forget the visit to the zoo! This was a fast visit to only the penguins, the pandas, and the primate center. By far my favorite exhibit at theRZSS Edinburgh Zoo was the penguins (the pandas weren’t out so . . .). Edinburgh has set up a rookery where the rock penguins were actively hatching chicks! As animal behaviorists, we all could have sat at the penguin exhibit for hours.
We were all struck by the openness of the animal behavior research on the primates. All of the observation rooms where research was conducted also had viewing areas for the public – as if the scientists were on exhibit too! Fascinating!
Sadly, Tian Tian was in her off-exhibit den and Yang Guang was fast asleep (as is typical of giant pandas) so we didn’t get great photos of him!
It was so busy, too quick, but SO much fun!
-Meg