I like (good) zoos a lot – on every long trip I take, I try to visit at least one. But they’re not really offbeat attractions in of themselves – at least until someone opens a zoo full of dinosaurs, which I don’t think could end badly.

Nonetheless I wanted to write about it anyway, and fortunately there’s enough interesting things going on at the park that I cobbled together a blog post nonetheless! Here’s five little stories that make Edinburgh Zoo special.

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#1 Panda Diplomacy 🐼

Edinburgh Zoo is, at time of writing, the only zoo in the United Kingdom to have giant pandas. A few have the smaller, still cute red pandas, but for the time being, you’ll find the bamboo-addicted bear-sized ones nowhere else in the UK. Also Edinburgh has red pandas too. Just to rub it in.

Giant pandas are, of course, quite rare (although the situation has gotten better in recent years), and are only found in a few areas of Southern China. Consequently, this means that the Chinese government has control over every giant panda on the planet*. Taking advantage of this, China “leases” its pandas out on ten year contracts, signing deals with foreign zoos who are willing to pay very large sums of money and meet a laundry list of requirements. The zoo gets a very popular animal for a while, and China’s reputation in that country (theoretically) improves. This policy is known as “Panda Diplomacy” – China has also sent these cuddly cultural ambassadors to zoos afar as Russia, Japan and (for some reason) Belgium.

Edinburgh Zoo successfully met these requirements in 2011. Since then, they’ve spent £35,000 a month on panda food and over a million dollars a year to China. They also spent an eye watering amount of money on an enclosure specifically built for the bears. In return for all this effort, Edinburgh Zoo received a male and female panda, named Yang Guang (Sunshine) and Tian Tian (Sweetie) respectively.

However this ten year lease is due to end in a few months, and between the zoo being a bit cash-strapped due to the Covid-19 pandemic and relations between the UK and China taking a bit of a dive recently (in part due to the AUSUK defence pact) it seems likely that Yang Guang and Tian Tian will be heading back to China in December. So go see them quick if you want to!

You can see another sign of panda diplomacy outside the penguin enclosure, where a sign notes the presence of a classroom associated with the Confucius Institute. These are used by the Chinese government to offer classes and events about Chinese language and culture.

There was a hope that the two pandas might have cubs, which would have made it easier to keep them in the UK for longer, but the sexual chemistry just wasn’t there. Once the pandas have gone, there’s going to be a very empty exhibit and a strangely misplaced classroom sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party.

*With the exception of the two pandas in Taipei Zoo, which were gifted to Taiwan to try and improve cross-strait relations –  they’re since had kids and they’re really cute trust me!

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#2 The Other Exclusive Animal 🐨

Edinburgh Zoo also has another animal whose status as a bear has been up for debate – koalas.* At time of writing, the small colony of three koalas is the only one in the UK. They’re unbearably cute and have their own dedicated area of the park, ‘Koala Territory’.

They’re part of a breeding programme to boost koala numbers worldwide, so in 2018 a female called Tamani was flown in from a zoo in Germany. In order to ensure she wasn’t impacted by pressure changes in the cargo hold, Tamani had to literally fly alongside human passengers. She had a zookeeper escort throughout, of course.

Interestingly while doing research for this blog post, I found that Australia has its own leasing program called ‘Koala Diplomacy’. However, since a) koalas aren’t as endangered as pandas are and b) Australia isn’t an emerging superpower that’s ideologically in opposition to the West, I think Koala Diplomacy is of less interest to Political Science scholars. I did find a photo of Valdimir Putin holding a koala though – he seems genuinely thrilled about it.

* They’re marsupials, but some people confuse koalas as tiny bears. Giant pandas were once thought to be more closely related to raccoons than other bears, for… some reason.

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#3 – The Polish Corporal Who Was Also a Bear 🐻

If you browse Reddit for long enough, you will inevitably come across the story of Wojtek the bear. If you’re one of today’s lucky ten thousand, his Wikipedia article covers the story here – in brief though, Wojtek was bought by a Polish soldier as a bear cub during World War 2. Beloved as a mascot and morale booster, Wojtek was formally made a private in the Polish army so he could stay and help fight the Nazis (no pets allowed on the battlefield).

He was issued pay, which was spent on food for him, and Wojtek returned the favour by helping to lift heavy items like shells and crates full of supplies. By the end of the war he somehow managed to be promoted to Corporal.

After the war, Corporal Wojtek was discharged, and he retired to Edinburgh Zoo for the rest of his life. His old army buddies would frequently come and visit him, until he passed away in 1963 aged 21.

Although I’d heard this story a thousand times at this point, I somehow forgot that Wojtek retired to the Zoo, and didn’t look out for any memorials or statues – I only remembered this at all because there’s a book about his life in the gift shop (which I now regret not buying). Checking online does suggest that there’s no memorial to Wojtek on the zoo grounds itself 🙁HOWEVER there are memorials across the world, including one in central Edinburgh, so I tracked it down to have a look – and it’s really cool!

You can find the Wotjek memorial statue – which also includes a diorama about his life – in Queen’s Street Park, about a ten minute walk from Waverly Station. It’s a fitting tribute for a bear that called the city his home during his golden years, and sort of unintentionally helped the fight against Nazi Germany.

#4 – A Fascinating Remnant of Histo… wait, Where Did They Go? 🐂

Aurochs were the ancestors of modern European cattle, and were basically huge cows that wandered Eurasia before being either being domesticated or hunted to extinction. A few wild aurochs actually survived until the 17th century, when the last one was shot in Poland. However, the shared ancestry of aurochs and modern cattle led to experiments in “breeding back” the species through selective breeding. The idea is to select cattle breeds with certain attributes, like more aggression or bigger horns, and over time eventually produce a new breed called ‘Heck cattle’, which ideally would be identical to the original aurochs.

The Smithsonian did a really cool write-up on the story of Heck cattle, which eventually involved Herman Goring, can be found here. In summary – they got surprisingly close, despite the fact that “breeding back” isn’t how genetics works, and Heck cattle still exist to this day.

While researching for this trip, I came across a news article from 2011 announcing that Heck Cattle were coming to Edinburgh Zoo, and I got really excited! I’ve never seen Heck cattle before, so I was going to take some cool photos and write an entry about them for this blog.

Except… when I got there they seemed to have vanished. I couldn’t find them on the map, and (apologetically) asked two members of staff about it, but neither of them were even aware they’d been at the zoo at all. Were the zookeepers gaslighting me??

Doing some research later, I found that in 2012 one of the bulls got so aggressive that he literally broke out of his enclosure, forcing staff to evacuate the entire zoo. It seems like shortly afterwards the zoo decided to quietly get rid of their Heck cattle herd, which I can understand (to most visitors they just look like normal cows). I imagine they weren’t dearly missed.

As a consolation prize, Edinburgh Zoo does have bantengs on display, a type of big cattle from Southeast Asia. They’re cool as well. I suppose.

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#5 – The *Other* Military Animal 🐧

Yes, astoundingly Wotjek isn’t the only animal part of a foreign military to reside at Edinburgh Zoo. Being just across the water, Scotland has had close links with Norway for centuries. In 1961, during a visit of the Norwegian King’s Guard, a lieutenant dropped by at Edinburgh Zoo and was fascinated by the colony of King penguins. For some reason he suggested that the King’s Guard adopt one as their mascot, and for some other reason the King agreed.

Dubbed Sir Olav, after the Norwegian King at the time, he has been promoted every time the Norwegian military visits the zoo, which apparently happens more often than you might think. Most recently, Sir Olav was officially knighted, meaning he could theoretically pull rank on Wojtek. I think that’s how the military works??

You can see the Norwegian general at the penguin pool – although I don’t think it’s possible to actually pick him out. Other than the badge he wears during official events, there’s no actual way to know which specific penguin he is, as there’s about five King penguins in the enclosure. In fact I’m not even sure the Zoo knows which one is which – they all look identical!

Sir Olav also has his own memorial, and unlike Wotjek it’s actually on the Zoo grounds! A bronze penguin statue has been placed next to the children’s playground. It’s in memory of the two previous Sir Olavs – penguins unfortunately don’t live very long, so the role of general has passed down from penguin to penguin.

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Helpful Information

• Again the giant pandas are almost certainly going back to China in December, so go see them quick if you want to say hello!
• The Zoo (at time of writing) still has quite strict Covid-19 regulations in place. Some of the animal houses are closed and the restaurants only have takeaway food.
• You should also book your tickets online ahead of time. You can buy them at the gate, but they have limited tickets for each timeslot – I had to wait for an hour for a free slot.
• There’s a slight student discount but it’s only like 5% off.
• There’s disabled toilets, but no gender neutral ones – except the chemical toilets (?!) they’ve placed at the very back of the zoo. Were guests just defecating there or something???
• The Zoo is built on the side of a hill, so there’s a lot of steep slopes to navigate. My legs got pretty tired after a bit.