NICOLA Sturgeon has rejected an urgent plea to let Edinburgh Zoo reopen this month to save it from closure and protect 300 jobs, saying it could lead to a “mess”.

The First Minister said she had “nothing but sympathy” for the zoo’s operator, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), which is haemorrhaging £700,000 a month.

But she said the Scottish Government had to act “in careful and properly assessed” way and could not make exceptions for individual organisations or particular circumstances.

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“If we started to operate that way we would end up in a mess,” she told MSPs.

The comments followed an appeal from Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, whose Edinburgh Western constituency includes the zoo, the home to Scotland’s only giant pandas.

At FMQs, he told Ms Sturgeon the RZSS had warned that “if it cannot open Edinburgh zoo by the end of the month, it may face closure, which would threaten 300 jobs”.

He said: “Even with the furlough scheme in place, the society faces a burn rate of £700,000 in every month in which the zoo stays shut. 

“It has adapted the zoo so that it can be operated safely for people to visit outdoors only, and with adequate social distancing measures in place. 

“If it were to be allowed to open now, it could see a pathway to recovery. 

“The United Kingdom Government will allow English zoos to reopen from next Monday, so will the First Minister listen to the more than 3,000 people who have signed my petition and allow Scottish zoos to reopen their doors now, before they face collapse?” 

Ms Sturgeon said she wanted such organisations to be able to reopen as quickly as possible, but added: “We must do so in a careful and properly assessed way. 

“We cannot start to take individual decisions based on particular circumstances or organisations - not because we do not desperately want to do what such organisations are asking of us - but because if we started to operate in that way we would end up in a mess.

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“The virus might run out of control and we would then have to reverse some of those decisions. 

“Each Government has to take decisions on the basis of the advice that it receives and its own judgment. 

“It is only a few weeks since I was being asked why we were not following a similar timetable to England on schools reopening, and yet now we are seeing a reversal of that timetable.

“This process is not a popularity contest. It is about trying to get things right, which I will continue to strive to do.”