Highland Wildlife Park volunteers construct reindeer chute
Nine Scottish Water employees based in the utility firm’s Inverness office spent a volunteering day constructing a reindeer chute at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie.
The team of volunteers assisted with the construction of a chute to move reindeer from one area to another using fallen branch and brush from the adjacent pine forest.
The park at Kingussie and at Edinburgh are operated and owned by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), a charity which was established in 1909 by Edinburgh lawyer Thomas Gillespie.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland has been working to promote the awareness and conservation of rare and endangered animals for over 100 years.
Their mission is “to excite and inspire their visitors with the wonder of living animals, and so to promote the conservation of threatened species and habitats.”
They also support a wide variety of research and conservation projects in the UK and around the world.
Douglas Richardson, Animal Collection Manager at the Park, said, “Over the years, we have had a number of volunteer groups assist with a variety of projects at the Highland Wildlife Park. The two walls of the chute that they constructed would have done the designers of the Berlin wall proud.
“We ended up with a result that surpassed my expectations, will more than serve the purpose we intended, and it cost us nothing. We would be more than happy to host a similar group again and it is this sort of contribution from companies within the community that allow us to stretch our conservation funds further.”
Barry Hardy, an Asset Planner in Scottish Water’s Inverness Office, agreed: “It’s really satisfying to do something worthwhile in our local area, and a joy to work in such a beautiful location. We all had a marvellous day of good banter and gelling as a team which was very different from our normal working environment. It has been really good to get the feeling we are really giving something back.”
Fiona Burley, Scottish Water’s volunteering programme co-ordinator said; “Our employee volunteering programme was launched in spring 2011 and has proved to be very popular with over 1000 employees taking part. Every employee has up to two days of leave to use which is used to help non-profit making organisations with practical tasks they may not be able to carry out on their own.”
