Soothing live animal webcams to watch while you’re stuck at home

Human visitors have vanished from the halls of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and the penguins are taking over. Since the aquarium temporarily shuttered its doors as a part of their coronavirus response, caretakers have been taking some of the aquarium’s penguins on adorable tours of the facility. The adventure continues! This morning, Edward and Annie explored Shedd’s rotunda.

They are a bonded pair of rockhopper penguins, which means they are together for nesting season. Springtime is nesting season for penguins at Shedd, and this year is no different! (1/3) pic. twitter.

com/VdxN3oQAfe Shedd’s Twitter updates sent me down an underwater rabbit hole into the soothing world of animal distractions. The penguin’s excursions are one of the many ways that shuttered zoos and aquariums are keeping their public engaged. Thousands of miles away from the Shedd, the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California has a wide selection of live cams up and running. Though @MontereyAq is closed, our webcams are still streaming.

Until we reopen, you can check in on the sea otters, sway with the kelp forest, find tranquility with the jellies and look for wildlife out on Monterey Bay: https://t. co/51aaLE8flr pic. twitter. com/kK9VNj4z31 Most of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s webcams are available during set hours, with reruns playing during downtime.

(If you want to watch sea otters live, for example, you’ll need to tune in between 10AM and 10PM PT. ) Personally, the jellies are my jam. If you’re more of a vertebrate person, the Smithsonian’s 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 you. The Smithsonian’s webcams stream 24/7, but since the zoo shut down, they are not being staffed by volunteers — that means the animals might sometimes wander out of frame from time to time. But if you tune into the Houston Zoo’s cameras, you get a chance to direct the action. People tuning in to some of the live streams can click on a button in the lower right corner of the screen, allowing you to zoom in and around the habitats for about a minute.