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.
Will the Beavers Cause a lot of Damage
Beavers do modify their habitats through coppicing, feeding and in some cases damming (beavers living on lochs or large rivers have little need of dams), but this has a positive effect on biodiversity and habitat creation and management, plus controlling sediment and acidic run off. They do fell trees to eat bark in the winter and to build their dams. Most trees will be coppiced and will regenerate.
Coppicing has been a normal process through most of history for bankside trees and the actions of beavers will make the woodland more natural. They normally forage close to water with activity concentrated within 20 m of the water’s edge.
Studies carried out by Scottish Natural Heritage conclude that beaver occupation in Scotland is likely to be benign. Any occasional localised problems could be overcome by simple action, such as overflow piping and electric fencing. Beavers rarely eat conifers, although the odd conifer might be gnawed by an immature animal that has not learned that conifers are unpalatable and that resin gums up their teeth. They do not live in water entirely surrounded by conifers.