The founder of an award-winning wildlife park in the Highlands has died.
Edward Orbell, who was known as Eddie, led the Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig for many years.
He died on Saturday at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
Mr Orbell, of Kincraig, is survived by his wife Joanne, daughter Jeannette and son John, plus several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
He was deputy director at Chessington Zoo before he came north to run the Highland park, which concentrated on native Scottish species.
He also helped to found Speysound Radio, which covered the Badenoch and Strathspey area.
He retired from the park in 1988, when the Royal Zoological Society took over and began take on non-native species – a move he initially did not agree with.
Since then, Amur tigers and polar bears have been added to the collection alongside capercaillie and wildcats.
Mr Orbell visited the park in 2012 for the 40th anniversary celebrations.
Doug Richardson, the park’s head of living collections, said that he met Mr Orbell in 1976 when he was a young zoo keeper. Mr Orbell gave Mr Richardson a tour of the park.
He said: “The next time we met was in 2009, Eddie was of course retired and I was now the animal manager of the park and taking him on the tour around.
“Because of Eddie’s crucial role in forming and running the park for a number of years, I was a little concerned as to what his opinion may be, especially as we had expanded the remit of the site beyond the original Scottish species focus.
“It was not without a little relief and a huge amount of pride that I received Eddie’s full approval for how we had altered his park.
“Eddie was a zoo professional, man and boy, starting in London Zoo then Chessington Zoo before coming to the Highlands to develop what was a new and dynamic project. It is because of his deep and broad background in the business that made his support of what we have been doing at the Park all the more valuable.
“I will miss his reminiscences of the zoo world and on behalf of the staff at the wildlife park, our condolences to his wife Joanne and all of his family.