Adopt an Animal!
Are you an ardent animal lover? looking for a gift idea?
Why not adopt an animal from either Edinburgh Zoo or Highland Wildlife Park for a whole year!
Plan You Visit
Find out how to make the most of your trip and book tickets here.
Become a Member
Our membership package comes with lots of benefits including a year's unlimited free entry to both our parks!
You can join by post, phone or even today on the website.
| Common Name: | Raven | Family: | Corvidae |
| Latin Name: | Corvus corax | Diet: | Omnivore |
| Type: | Bird | Habitat: | Woodlands, Grasslands |
| Native To: | Europe, Asia | Social Unit: | Pairs or small groups |
| IUCN Red List Status: | Least concern |
Ravens at Edinburgh Zoo
Edinburgh Zoo currently has two ravens: a male that was hatched in 2003, and a female that was wild born in about 1990 in Germany. Both birds arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in 2007 from the Emmen Zoo in Holland.
Our ravens are currently part of an ongoing study into food exchange involving Edinburgh Zoo staff, researchers from St Andrew’s University and an Austrian scientific institute. The ravens participate voluntarily with the staff, exchanging items of lower quality or quantity for an item of higher “value.”
Edinburgh Zoo’s ravens are fed a diet of chicks, mice, meat, nuts, fruit, vegetables, egg and insects.
The ravens are highly intelligent birds and keepers routinely provide them with enrichment. They are often given novel or interesting items that are designed to challenge their problem-solving skills.
Where you can find it at Edinburgh Zoo
The Ravens can be found in the old great grey owl enclosure, just up from the Eastern Bongos.
Ravens in the wild
Common ravens (Corvus corax), also known as Northern ravens, have an extremely large range and are found throughout Europe and Russia, south through the Caucasus region, and into northern Iran. They are the most widely-distributed of all the corvids, a family that includes crows, rooks, jackdaws and magpies, among others.
Ravens are typically between 55 and 70 cm (22 – 27 inches), and have glossy, iridescent black plumage. They have elongated throat feathers, giving their throats a shaggy look. They have a very long life-span, with some ravens in captivity living up to 40 years.
Ravens are opportunistic omnivores, meaning they eat just about anything edible that they can find. Depending on their location, they may hunt small rodents, reptiles, amphibians, or other birds; additionally, they scavenge carcasses and forage for insects, grains, berries, and fruits. Ravens that live near humans will scavenge their food waste, and human roads often provide ravens with a wide variety of road kill to eat!
Mature ravens typically travel in mated pairs, but younger ravens sometimes form flocks. Once paired, ravens tend to stay mated for life. Mated pairs claim a territory of their own before they begin nest-building and breeding.
Ravens are extremely intelligent and are well known for their problem-solving and tool-making behaviours. The brain size of the raven is among the largest of all bird species.
IUCN Red List category: Least Concern
Adopt a raven A great way to support RZSS – buy it for yourself or as a gift for the animal lover in your life!
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