One of the advantages of studying at the University of Edinburgh is the sheer number of activities that one could join. As a student for only a semester, I didn’t want it to go to waste, so I decided to register myself for another activity, which would be different than the hillwalking club (read my post about the hillwalking club here). I was looking for volunteering work where I can contribute my time and efforts to a good cause. Then, there I was on one fine Sunday morning in November, standing in front of the Edinburgh Zoo’s main entrance, fully equipped with my working clothes and boots ready to do some (literally) dirty work.
A little bit about the Edinburgh Zoo itself, the Zoo is owned by the Royal Zoology Society of Scotland (RZSS) and was first opened in 1913. Unlike many other Zoos, the main missions of the Edinburgh Zoo are to help conserve, educate, and research with other zoos and conservation agencies in the world. The funds collected by the Zoo, other than to support the Zoo itself, are also used to support conservation projects in the wild. Knowing that they are working for good causes made it an easy decision for me to volunteer there.
There were 14 other students who registered for the volunteering work, and we were greeted by Blair, a staff of the zoo who acted as our coordinator for the day, and soon he explained the jobs that we would be doing until the end of the day. To put it shortly, we’d start the day at 10 AM by clearing out and preparing for the re-opening of the Wildlife Garden which has been closed since the start of 2020 (thanks to COVID-19), have a lunch break from 12 PM – 1 PM, continue with the Wildlife work for another hour, and then a secret challenge that would be announced later.
Before the start of the work, Blair kindly took us for a short visit to several animal enclosures, such as the penguin pool and the red panda’s enclosure. Personally, I found the red panda family to be one of the best enclosures in the whole zoo, just because we could see the parents, Bruce and Ginger, struggling to deal with their kit, Ruby, who was just born in 2021. Definitely, something that I’d suggest people to check if they’re planning to visit the Zoo!
Shortly, we started to work on the Wildlife Garden. The group was divided into two smaller groups, one with the job to clear out the bushes near the ponds, and another was tasked to clear the path, lay down ground cover membrane, and cover it with 4-inch thick of wood chips. The job seems easy, but it was physical work that sucked the energy out of me by the time we finished it. Shoveling the woodchips from a big pile and moving it into the wheelbarrows also killed my arm and my back. Thankfully, we were able to use some of the lunch break time to stroll around the zoo for a wee bit, where we observed some of the penguins sunbathing and chilling.
After we finished with the Wildlife Garden, we proceed to go to the wallaby and kangaroo enclosure. The enclosure is an open enclosure, where there is a path for the visitors to walk through the enclosure. If you’re lucky, you may see the wallabies and kangaroos crossing the path. The “secret” work that was kept by Blair that we do here is a small competition among the 2 groups, where we were asked to collect the feces (or poop) of the wallabies and the kangaroos, put it in a plastic bag, and by the end of the 15 minutes period will be weighted by Blair. The group that collected more poop will win the challenge and rewarded with a bragging right in front of the other group.
Gloves have been put on, it’s time to handpick some poop. If you want to know how it felt to pick the poop, thankfully it’s not as disgusting as I was expecting. You can see from the picture that the poop looks harmless, and I’m glad to report that everyone was enjoying the challenge, and the spirit of the competition was indeed alive. In the end, my team won, and we actually broke the record for the heaviest poop ever collected by the volunteering teams. What an achievement, huh?
As a present for all the volunteers, we get to enjoy the rest of the day in the zoo. Being a student on a budget, this is what I have been secretly waiting for the whole day. We managed to go through all the animal enclosures in the last 2 opening hours of the zoo, where we met pygmy hippo, giraffes, pandas, and I even met my fellow Indonesians, the Sumatran tigers! Another thing that I like about the zoo is that since the main goal is to conserve the animals, the enclosures are spacious and built to mimic the natural habitat of the animals. Because of this, please wear comfortable walking shoes if you’re planning to visit; the zoo is located on a hill and it’s extensive. As a reference, I put the map of the zoo down below.
IMFSE 