Human visitors have disappeared from the halls of Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium and the penguins are taking over. Since the aquarium temporarily closed its doors as part of their coronavirus response, caretakers have taken some of the aquarium penguins on adorable tours of the facility.
The adventure continues!
This morning Edward and Annie explored Shedd’s roundabout. They are a bonded pair of rockhopper penguins which means they are together for the breeding season. Spring is the breeding season for penguins in Shedd, and this year is no different! (1/3) pic.twitter.com/VdxN3oQAfe– Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 16, 2020
Shedd’s Twitter updates sent me through an underwater rabbit hole into the soothing world of animal distraction. The penguin’s excursions are one of the many ways that shuttered zoos and aquariums keep their audiences engaged. Thousands of miles from the Shedd, California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium has one wide selection of live cams up and running.
Most Monterey Bay Aquarium webcams are available during fixed hours, with repetitions during downtime. (If you want look at sea otters live, for example, you need to tune between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. PT.)
Personally, the jellies are my jam.
If you’re more of a vertebrate, the Smithsonians are National Zoo has webcams available for giant pandas, lions, elephants and naked mole rats. Yes, naked mole rats. If seeing their hairless little bodies calms you down, you do. The Smithsonian’s webcams are streamed 24/7, but since the zoo closed, they have not been staffed by volunteers – meaning the animals sometimes stray from the picture from time to time.
But if you tune in the cameras of the Houston Zoo, you will have the opportunity to send the action. People who tune into some live streams can click a button in the bottom right corner of the screen, so you can zoom in and around the habitats for about a minute. It’s a bit fussy to use and you may have to wait in line until it’s your turn to send the camera, but it’s still fun.
If you travel a bit further away, you can tune in to the drinking place of Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. A worker keeps it on in the morning and evening and sees impalas, birds and the occasional hippos and elephants.
Most livestreams are just soothing – good things to watch if you feel your anxiety increase, or if you just need to watch a landscape that isn’t right outside your window. The Cincinnati Zoo goes a step further – they announced that they do a live stream on Facebook every weekday at 3 p.m. ET with an animal in their exhibits and an activity for children to follow at home.
And if you want even more variety, Explore.org has a tons of animal live streams ranging from cuddling kittens to nesting bald eagles. They even have a pre-recorded meditation of bears catching salmon (and other wildlife) to take us everywhere until the beloved bear camera returns from the internet this summer.