Celebrating conservation and science
Posted 4 Mar 2025
This British Science Week we’re shining a spotlight on the research we conduct at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS). Our expert team of conservation scientists, geneticists, veterinarians and research associates work hard to publish cutting-edge research, which is having a huge impact. With over 330 publications since 2009, our wildlife conservation charity’s priority is to conduct research with real-world applications for conservation action, animal welfare and veterinary health.
The past five years have been our most productive in terms of the amount of peer-reviewed research we have produced, with 30 papers published in scientific journals in 2023 and 29 in 2024. This research is already being used to informing conservation work around the world.
Explore our research
From pygmy hippos to African wild dogs, yaks to goliath frogs, and reticulated pythons to great spotted kiwi, our research has involved almost 100 different species, many of them rare and threatened.
There are a few species we’ve really focussed on, about which we’ve published the most research.
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Giant anteaters and armadillos in Brazil
Our charity has supported RZSS conservation associate Dr Arnaud Desbiez’s work in Brazil studying giant armadillos and giant anteaters for over 15 years. In that time his team has produced around 60 peer-reviewed publications on these two species, about which very little was previously known. Through his NGO, Wild Animal Conservation Institute (ICAS), Arnaud is using this cutting-edge research to implement crucial conservation actions for these incredible animals. Publications about these species’ diets and movements are filling a knowledge gap and informing conservation management decisions, while studies of road mortality are leading to policy recommendations on how to reduce wildlife vehicle collisions. ICAS’s research has also highlighted several unexpected discoveries, such as when the team observed vampire bats feeding on both species!
Bringing beavers back to Scotland
Since 2009, RZSS has been working on beaver conservation in Scotland, with a leading role in the Scottish Beaver Trial and Scottish Beaver Reinforcement in Knapdale. To this day we are still working on beaver conservation genetics and welfare discussions, publishing research and reports regularly, including 22 peer-reviewed publications and 13 reports on this species. Our work has ranged from contributions to disease risk assessments and genetic surveillance to reintroduction strategies and health screening reports.
Saving Wildcats: from research to release
RZSS has been involved in wildcat conservation for over a decade. In that time our incredible team have published 12 research articles and seven reports, from investigations into hybridisation with domestic cats to conservation breeding and genetics reports. This research has been instrumental to the successful wildcat releases conducted by Saving Wildcats in the Cairngorms National Park over the past two years.
We’re really proud of the excellent science our team has published so far and we are working on more research all the time! Some studies, like our project to investigate the health of Scotland’s population of critically endangered flapper skate are just getting started, but are already producing results. Last year one of our team led on the publication of a paper investigating physiological responses to capture and handling in flapper skate. This was exciting progress for the project, but just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we aim to discover, all with the purpose of saving wildlife in Scotland and around the world!
Want to learn more? Come along to our science week event at Edinburgh Zoo