BLAIR DRUMMOND SAFARI PARK EARNS

2013 TRIPADVISOR CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE

Honoured as a Top Performing Visitor Attraction as Reviewed by Travellers on the

World’s Largest Travel Site

We are pleased to announce we have received a TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence award. The accolade, which honours hospitality excellence, is given only to establishments that consistently achieve outstanding traveller reviews on TripAdvisor, and is extended to qualifying businesses worldwide. Only the top-performing 10 per cent of businesses listed on TripAdvisor receive this prestigious award.

To qualify for a Certificate of Excellence, businesses must maintain an overall rating of four or higher, out of a possible five, as reviewed by travellers on TripAdvisor, and must have been listed on TripAdvisor for at least 12 months. Additional criteria include the volume of reviews received within the last 12 months.

Thank you all very much for your kind words, please be aware that we do read and listen to your comments, we are always striving to make the park better.

Chimps, Sea lions, elephants and eagles at Blair Drummond Safari Park are inviting you to show them just how much you care by celebrating the launch of Love Your Safari Park week, Saturday (May 25).

The campaign, which was launched by the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) in 2011, will run from Saturday, May 25 to Friday, May 31. Its aim is to encourage people to visit their local BIAZA zoos, aquariums and wildlife centres not only for a fun day out, but to learn just how much they do for conservation, education and research.

More than 50 zoos, aquariums and wildlife centres across the UK will be taking part and as part of the week, Blair Drummond will be proudly promoting their new exhibits, conservation initiatives and encouraging animal adoring visitors to complete a trail of informative and interactive education stations dotted around the park.

The safari park will be hosting it’s BIGGEST EVER photographic competition for entries only submitted during love your zoo week. The prize is to come behind the scenes and photograph the animals from the other side of the fence – up close and personal!

The competition is only for photographs taken at Blair Drummond Safari Park.

It’s open to all ages with no categories!

Digital enhancing, masks and layers are OK – get creative!

Entries must be sent via email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (less then 8meg)

No licensing or copyright to be attached to entries.

Entries must only be submitted during Love Your Safari Park Week.

Good Luck.

Some Students from Glasgow University were rewarded for their efforts and invited to feed the giraffe.

Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park has WON The 2013 Scottish Entertainment Awards for Scotland’s Favourite Family Day Out. Over 5,000 business across Scotland took part in the awards and over 30,000 members of the public voted.

We are extremely proud to win this award, on behalf of all members of staff we’d sincerely like to thank all of you that voted. We will continue to improve and make the park even more attractive and best value for families. More information is available at: entertainmentguideawards.co.uk

All the staff at Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park, near Stirling, Scotland, are extremely proud to welcome Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal to officially open their brand new Elephant Habitat that they have been developing for the last 5 years. The new habitat will be home to their 3 elderly female African elephants that have been resident at the safari park since 1997. Blair Drummond Safari Park is considered as one of the best facilities in Europe for housing problematic female elephants that have had difficulty socialising and integrating with other elephants at their previous homes.

Blair Drummond is dedicated to their essential role as a retirement facility for dysfunctional elephants and they strive to offer the highest standard of care and welfare for these high maintenance individuals. In order for them to fulfil this role they have undertaken their largest ever construction project in their 43 year history.

The concept for the design has involved international expert consultants and elephant managers from several different BIAZA collections. The design has been developed and evolved over the past 5 years with construction taking in excess of 18 months to make sure that it meets all the highly demanding needs of Estrella (49), Mondula (42) and Toto (43). All work was undertaken by local businesses and trades people, with the living area for the elephants being developed and built in-house by the parks own highly skilled engineer.

The habitat has been designed to encourage the elephants a far greater range of decision making in their daily lives while keeping them in the best possible physical and mental health. Everything within the habitat has been carefully designed and developed to allow all natural behaviours to be displayed by each elephant. Some of the innovations range from a £20,000 bespoke state of the art computer controlled feeding system that provides the elephants with access to food over a 24 hour period but with rations being delivered at random intervals to encourage them to mimic natural foraging behaviours. This system is already being adopted by other elephant collections due to its ground breaking design. There is nearly 500 tons of specialist silica sand substrate with each grain selected to be no more than 0.5mm in diameter to prevent it compacting and to allow the elephant a soft, natural floor to interact with and mould to the shape of their bodies to allow a more comfortable nights sleep. The indoor habitat has 3 low-light behaviour recording cameras so their night time activity can be carefully monitored by the parks research staff. The £40,000 remote control gate system allows the keepers to safely move the elephants about the habitat without having to be in put at any potential risk, with the hydraulic oil being vegetable based to prevent any health issues if it is accidently ingested by any of the 3 residents.
 

The keeping staff and head vet are able to gain full and safe access to each elephant in the protected contact husbandry area, in which the elephants can cooperate with the team on a voluntary basis. The elephants even have their own shower room and set of scales within the premises!

To help reduce environmental impact a majority of the required steel work has been recycled from the old elephant accommodation and all timber used has been grown on Blair Drummond Estate. The whole building is insulated from foundation level right up to the roof and a climate controlled under floor heating system will keep the building at a minimum of 16 degrees Celsius all year round regardless of the weather outside. A huge emphasis has been placed on having as much natural materials as possible for the elephants within the building with a majority of the internal walls having been constructed from native Scottish trees.The new habitat allows the elephants 24 hour access to their two and a half acre outdoor area all year round which includes mud wallows, fresh grazing, earth mounds to climb on and various natural objects for them to interact with and increase the amount of exercise that they get each day.

The public have been provided with an indoor viewing area, overlooking the whole of the indoor habitat that is now open to all visitors to the park. Regardless of the weather visitors are invited to come and spend time observing three of the parks most loved individuals as they go about their daily lives.

Willow warbler.

As part of our Native Species Monitoring Programme, we were delighted to welcome back some migratory birds from their travels. There was much excitement at 05:30 on Friday morning as three Willow warblers fluttered gently into our nets; we rang these birds back in 2012, and against all odds, they managed to safely return from Africa on their annual migration. They will stay here for the summer, in which time they will moult and hopefully breed before returning to Africa. The record for an annual re-trap Willow warbler is eleven times! It’s amazing to think that a bird that weighs just over nine grams (equivalent to just over half a digestive biscuit!) had flown 11 times to Africa. The Willow warblers are amongst some of the many different bird species we have caught, including; Yellow Hammers, Black Caps, Kingfishers, Bramblings, Treecreepers, Common Crossbill Reed Bunting, bullfinch, Song Thrush and Greenfinch.

Kingfisher

We were further pleased to run our first moth trap in the newly developing bugland (an area we are developing specifically to demonstrate how easy and beneficial it is to attract insects and wildlife). Despite the fact the exhibit is not yet finished, it is important to monitor throughout it’s development. Our two traps revealed a total of 50 captures of four different species of moths; Hebrew Character, Small Quaker, Common Quaker and Clouded Drab.

Skinners moth trap and Hebrew character moth. 

Easter has come a little early to the residents of Chimpanzee Island at Blair Drummond Safari Park in the form of an Easter egg hunt – Chimp style!

No chocolate eggs for these guys though, they have a much healthier alternative tailor made to suit the preferences of an ape. Staff painted giant Ostrich eggs and then filled them with goodies such as yoghurt, honey, peanut butter and mealworms to provide a tasty treat for their animals. They were even given a few hot cross buns to cheer up a very chilly morning.

Head Keeper Alasdair Gillies said “Chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, are extremely intelligent animals. We provide many forms of enrichment for them every day to stimulate them and prevent them from getting bored and fed up. Staff came up with the Easter theme for a bit of fun, but it does have a serious side and the chimps certainly seemed to enjoy it.”

Blair Drummond has five chimpanzees on the island :  the boss, Chippie (24), his mother Blossom (55), Rosie (25), and more recent arrivals Tupelo (19) and Copper (23).

“While the ladies were interested in the contents of the eggs Chippie, after an initial investigation, found it very amusing to throw one of his eggs back at the keepers showering them in strawberry yoghurt.  It’s all part of the fun!” said Mr Gillies.

Everyone is invited to join the fun and go on an Easter egg hunt of their own for golden eggs at Blair Drummond this Sunday and Monday.

A Marmoset also enjoying an Easter egg, filled with treats!

We are very excited to announce the arrival of a new addition to our collection.    Her name is Bella and she is a beautiful 11year old Amur Tiger.    Bella is part of our commitment to the European Endangered Species Programme (E.E.P.)   Amur Tigers are endangered and it is thought there may only be about 250 breeding animals left in a small region of far east Russia. Heavily threatened by deforestation and poaching, these magnificent creatures face a very uncertain future. Bella has successfully mixed with Genghis our male tiger This year also sees work starting on a new Tiger House.

If you keep your eyes peeled you may also catch a glimpse of a young Marmoset clinging to his parents. The marmosets are free roaming in the pets farm department and are quite difficult to spot! Also in pets farm you may see a young Joey wallaby. He currently spends a lot of time in mum’s pouch but regularly pokes his head out to take in the wide world. The birds of prey department has increased its demonstration team with a striking Spectacled Owl (Central America), a Red Legged Serima (Brazil\Uruguay\Argentina) and a young Bengal Eagle Owl (Indian subcontinent).

We are very proud to announce, we will be going even greener as we begin separating and recycling plastic bottles, cans, glass, paper and card from general waste bins.

Thanks to an investment from Zero Waste Scotland, new recycling bins are set to appear throughout the park.  All visitors are encouraged to help  divert as much litter away from landfill, so it may be used as a useable resource for Scotland.

Education officer, Dave Warren who was successful in his application to Zero Waste Scotland for the grant says: “We’re delighted to manage both our own and visitor waste in a responsible and beneficial manner. Consumer waste is one of the major causes of habitat destruction affecting many of the iconic species we have here at the safari park. We should all think of unwanted bottles, cans and packaging as a reusable product which will lessen the demand on the natural world for raw minerals. Recycling is so easy to do at the safari park, all our visitors need to do is put their waste into the correct section of the bin, and we’ll gladly do the rest.”

Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Richard Lochhead said:

“Recycling is vital to the economic and environmental future of Scotland so we must make it as easy as possible for people.  This funding is just one example of our commitment to make the most of Scotland’s valuable resources, and the bins will also contribute to our work to crack down on litter.”

Iain Gulland, Director of Zero Waste Scotland, said:

“We must stop thinking of used materials, like empty bottles and drinks cans, as waste. There’s real value in the goods we throw away, and the small effort it takes to separate waste for recycling can contribute to economic growth for Scotland.

“We were delighted to extend the funding from £500,000 to £850,000 in order to meet exceptional interest shown by local businesses and organisations, and we urge visitors to Blair Drummond Safari Park to make use of these new facilities.”

Over 32 projects have benefited from the Recycle on the Go Capital Support Fund, covering a range of locations such as public transport sites, tourist attractions, higher education institutions, shopping centres and NHS facilities.

• More information on all Zero Waste Scotland’s programmes can be found at www.zerowastescotland.org.uk
  

Education Assistant Kirsty helps to build the chimps their very own garden!

Head Keeper Alasdair Gillies explains; “While clearly we are not giving the chimps a potting shed and a copy of Alan Titchmarsh’s latest gardening guide there is a serious purpose to the project.” he said.

Many studies have shown that in the wild chimpanzees often ingest plants in order to “self medicate”. It is over 30 years since Michael Huffman of Kyoto University noticed that chimpanzees in captivity often suffered from intestinal problems caused by parasites that their wild counterparts seemed to largely avoid.  He witnessed that the wild apes often sucked the leaves of the Bitter Leaf Plant when they were ill. The plant has no real nutritious value, but after using it the animals seemed to recover.  Huffman consulted a traditional healer who informed him that the plants the chimps were using were the same ones the local people often used for similar complaints. Further studies have shown chimps using nettle like plants to clean their intestines of parasitic worms. The fine hairs on the leaves of the plant appear to scrape the intruders from the gut wall.

Growing the correct type of plants will play an important role in their everyday lives.

“Chimps LOVE strong tasting foods” said Mr Gillies “and it is not uncommon for our guys to eat lemons, garlic and even chillis for pleasure, especially Chippie, the leader of the troop.”

So in order to indulge them the keepers at Blair Drummond have designed a “herb garden” for the chimps to use. It consists of a mesh frame concreted into the ground that the plants grow through allowing the chimps to crop them without destroying the roots so the plants continue to grow.

“This is the latest part of an ongoing project to encourage the chimps to forage for their own food growing on the island.” explained Mr Gillies, “We have already planted a variety of berry bushes which the chimps love. I think we will go for fruit trees and some vegetables next.”

Renowned animal behaviourist and primatologist Prof. Hannah Buchanan-Smith from the University of Stirling adds “Encouraging the Blair Drummond chimpanzees to forage for food growing on the island provides them with choice and control over what and when to eat, which is likely to be good for their welfare”.