Interactive Discovery Experience Re-Opens

The Scottish Seabird Centre has this week re-opened the doors of their interactive Discovery Experience to visitors. The visitor attraction has been closed since February 2024 following a devastating internal flood. The cost of the damage and repair works is estimated at almost £500,000.

Susan Davies, CEO for the Charity said of the re-opening. “We are thrilled to welcome our members and visitors back to the Discovery Experience. The flood hit us at terrible time as we prepared for what should have been a busy spring/summer season of engagement. The damage from the water was severe and we were forced to strip the experience back to the bare walls and floor, to allow it to dry out.”

Whilst it has been an incredibly challenging period for our Charity, we have used the time to reimagine the space and how we use it to tell the stories of Scotland’s seas. Our new programme of films showcases the hidden wonders of Scotland’s marine environment, the impact of biodiversity loss around our coasts and islands and the inspiring activity already underway to restore nature.

We have installed flexible, new activity tables, immersive virtual-reality experiences and refreshed our theatre space. All this helps us showcase the exceptional and diverse marine life that our seas support.

Sustainability has been at the heart of the refit, from using recycled plastic material to recover our theatre seats to our 100% recyclable flooring.

We are now focussed on the future and welcoming members, the local community and visitors back to Dive In and explore all that our Centre has to offer.”

The Scottish Seabird Centre is open daily from 10am and the Discovery Experience is free to Scottish Seabird Centre Members.

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For further press information:

• Jess Thompson, Marketing Manager, email marketing@seabird.org, tel: +44(0)1620 890202.

Notes for editors

• The Scottish Seabird Centre is an award-winning marine conservation and education charity whose purpose is to inspire and educate people about the Scottish marine environment and motivate people to care for it by supporting conservation projects.
• In May 2025 the Charity will celebrate it’s 25th anniversary of the opening of its Visitor Centre doors the public and over the years has won multiple awards for tourism and sustainability. It has led a range of high-profile conservation and education projects including the SOS Puffin initiative in the Firth of Forth.
• Follow the Scottish Seabird Centre on Facebook/ScottishSeabirdCentre. Twitter @SeabirdCentre and Instagram @seabirdcentre
• For more information on the Scottish Seabird Centre visit www.seabird.org

Key Facts about Scotland’s marine environment

• Scotland has over 18,000km of coastline, in excess of 900 islands, 61% of the UK total sea area.
• The area of Scotland’s seas is about 6 times the land mass of Scotland.
• Scotland’s seas support an amazing diversity of wildlife with over 6,500 species recorded.
• ·A third of Europe’s breeding seabirds are found in Scotland.
• ·Seabirds are one of the world’s most threatened groups of vertebrates and one in three species are globally threatened with extinction, including populations of Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) and Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) which are enjoyed by visitors to the Firth of Forth.
• Important marine species include basking sharks, dolphins, porpoises and seals. About 35% of Europe’s harbour (or common) seal population also occur in UK waters with 83% of these found around Scotland’s coast.
• Underneath the water, Scotland supports important marine habitats such as cold-water coral, kelp forests and flame shell beds (an important blue carbon resource).
• Our oceans are important natural resource for combatting the effect of climate change. 83% of global carbon cycle is circulated through the world’s oceans and our coastal habitats account for around 50% of the total carbon sequestered in ocean sediments.
• Healthy seas, however, have huge potential to provide natural solutions to the climate emergency by locking up carbon and helping the planet to cool.
• In the last 50 years we have lost 2% of the oxygen in our oceans as a direct result of climate change, this is already having a devastating impact on our marine eco-systems and if left unchecked will be catastrophic for food security the world over.