This campaign has now closed
A New Home for our Chimpanzees The Budongo Trail will be a world class chimpanzee enclosure, linking an exciting visitor experience with wildlife conservation, science, education and research. The present chimpanzee enclosure is being redeveloped to create a naturalistic environment for a community of up to 40 chimps. One of the planned features of the enclosure is that, as well as a large outdoor area, there will be a network of rooms for the chimpanzees. These rooms will have different environmental conditions such as humidity, temperature and lighting so each chimpanzee can move between their preferred areas. There will also be hands-on interactive displays for visitors. In addition, the exhibit will feature a link to the Budongo Conservation Field Station in Uganda which is funded by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) which owns Edinburgh Zoo. This long-term conservation project involves the study of endangered chimpanzees in their natural habitat and the relationship between biodiversity and the local community. This will make RZSS the UK centre of expertise for primate behavioural research. And will be the first visible sign of the Zoo’s 20-year Masterplan.
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Situation
RZSS is the principal sponsor in the long term study and conservation of a group of approximately 60 chimpanzees as part of the Budongo Conservation Field Station in Uganda, Africa. Research students from various parts of the world are based at the site to undertake projects over several months. The results of the research help our understanding of chimpanzees and of the forest, and how best to support conservation. The Budongo Conservation Field Station is home to around 600 wild chimpanzees, as well as blue monkey, colobus monkey, forest baboon, duiker antelope, bush pig, and over 350 bird species. Budongo is a 'managed' forest with some timber extraction over the past 70 years. The effects of this upon wildlife and the relationship of the forest to local people are also being studied. Our chimpanzees at Edinburgh Zoo are temporarily living in an enclosure to the west of the park, while a new state-of-art chimpanzee enclosure called the Budongo Trail is currently being built at a cost of £5.6m. Several naming opportunities are available at sponsorship levels from £25,000 to £1 million.