Plan Your Visit to Edinburgh Zoo
We are open every day of the year, including Christmas Day, from 9am until:
| 6.00pm | April - Sept. |
| 5.00pm | Oct. & March |
| 4.30pm | Nov. - Feb. |
How you can help
The natural world needs our help...and we need yours! Please consider making a donation to support our conservation, education and research work, both within our parks and across the world.
Do Beavers Transmit Disease?
The beavers would be quarantined before being released into the wild. The risk to the public from these animals appears to be no greater than from any other wild mammal in Britain.
What about Giardia?
Giardia lamblia is a parasite that lives in the small intestine of many mammals, including humans and beavers; it is not particularly associated with beavers as a species. The low incidence levels in Norway where there are tens of thousands of beavers are similar to those currently in Scotland, demonstrating that beavers are unlikely to increase the risk (there was one Giardia outbreak in Norway in recent years, near
Bergen where there are no beavers).
The trial population will undergo a six-month quarantine to ensure that they are healthy and free from G. lamblia. We intend to work with the local public health department on monitoring pathogens.