News from the Natural World: Giraffes Returning to Edinburgh Zoo are hopeful that their new lodgings will be much more like their ancestral home in the African savannah.
Ronnie and Arrow arrived from Woburn Safari Park, Bedfordshire earlier on Tuesday after travelling overnight. It is 15 years since Giraffes lived at Edinburgh Zoo. Conservationists said numbers of giraffes in the wild have declined by almost 30% in the past three decades due to poaching and habitat loss. So sending more of them to live in Scotland seemed like a nice logical thing to do. Scottish school children and disinterested parents were clearly the key sources of salvation for their species. But Ronnie and Arrow were at first optimistic about the proposal to relocate them. They weren’t too happy with their current home in Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire hadn’t initially lived up to their expectations after life in Central Africa.
“How in any conceivable way is Bedfordshire similar to the central African savannah. No one in their right mind, or even someone in their wrong mind, would see that Bedfordshire has almost nothing in common with the savannah which we call home. The temperature is different, not to mention the humidity. In addition, the length of the days, the taste of the grass, leaves and berries. It’s completely different, no Zoologist in their right mind would argue that Bedfordshire was a suitable place for Giraffes. We’re really excited about Edinburgh, we’ve heard great things about the Scottish weather.”
Giraffes Returning to Edinburgh Zoo Hopeful
We were slightly taken aback by this comment, so we asked “What exactly have they told you about the Scottish weather?”