During the Edinburgh International Science Festival we hosted an amazing event here at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo. It involved having our Animal Cultures stand up in Budongo Trail, a interactive trail around the zoo and a fierce competition of 6 soap box scientists all competing for the Living Links Public Engagement Prize. We are now happy to announce our winner is Dr Jill MacKay from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).
Jill explained the science of animal personality to our visitors by giving a great example about how some lions can be bold and some can be shy. She discussed how we can assess this scientifically by using novel object tests and then compare the reactions of a variety of individual lions to then give us a scale of boldness or shyness in lions.
Watch Jill’s talk now.