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Staff at a top regional conservation charity have shared their successes and frustrations as they try to reduce, reuse and recycle consumables in their cafes and restaurants.

Wild Planet Trust is the charity that runs Paignton Zoo, Living Coasts in Torquay and Newquay Zoo in Cornwall. Staff and volunteers work to reduce the zoos’ impact on the planet in as many ways as they can – but it’s not always an easy or a simple process.

Trust Environmental Officer Pete Morgan: “There’s a lot of misinformation and half-truths about sustainability and the recycling of consumables....

It sounds like the latest police drama – the Zoo Evidence Officer is on the case, searching for clues, combing through paperwork and tracking down the truth.

In fact, the new post, based at Paignton Zoo in Devon, is about detecting science-based evidence for the best ways to care for, manage and breed animals in zoological collections for conservation purposes.

Wild Planet Trust, the charity that runs Paignton Zoo, Living Coasts in Torquay and Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, has been awarded a grant to recruit a post-doctoral researcher for a year. The Trust’s Field Conservation...

We often reach for a heat pack to ease aches and pains, with maybe a bit of a massage if we’re lucky. This is exactly the treatment 35-year-old Sophie is getting right now. The only difference is – she’s a giant tortoise.

Paignton Zoo’s Aldabra giant tortoise Sophie weighs 106 kilos, 233 pounds or 16 stones. She’s one of six confiscated by Customs from an illegal importation and handed to Paignton Zoo for safe keeping in 1986. Individuals can live for 200 years. She could be the first giant tortoise ever to receive this sort of treatment.

Paignton Zoo Head Vet Ghislaine...

Actor Aaron Deakins will be starring in the Independent feature film "the revelations " filming across the south west.

Directed by Adam Nancholas in his directorial debut.

His role on the film is said to be a detective sent in to stop a leader of a cult only to find something more horrific going on in the encampment.

Filming begins in november and will consist of a large cast including a large casting call for extras were held in the south west recently.

From teasers online Aaron is seen to be playing a damaged man who must fight to end the horror before him...