What did zoo animals get up to in lockdown?

What do you call an animal's virtual quiz night? A Zoo-m quiz!

It’s not just a funny joke - Zoom quizzes are just one of the many ways zoos around the UK have been keeping their animals entertained during the pandemic.

Zoos up and down the country had to close their doors during lockdown, meaning all the animals in them had all their regular visiting friends disappear overnight. But that doesn’t mean they were completely alone - far from it.

Jamie is a senior zookeeper at Chessington Zoo. He looks after birds, sea lions and small mammals. He explained that the animals were very well taken care of: “They got a LOT of TLC during that time.”

In fact, there being no visitors during lockdown meant the keepers had a lot more free time, and that time was spent with the animals. Jamie said the animals were pretty happy about all the extra attention.

So what did the keepers do to keep them entertained?

Jamie said, for most of the animals, it was “business as usual”; they would get fed, they’d be trained and they’d be checked to make sure they’re healthy.

However, there were some extra bits and bobs the keepers were able to do during lockdown.

Take Jackson the binturong. He’s a viverrid (a little known family of medium sized mammals) and is the “pride and joy” of Jamie’s life. He was taken on lots of walks around the zoo and met loads of the other animals, although by the sounds of it, it’s a wonder whoever was walking him didn’t trip: “He's a really people-orientated animal. He loves literally being right next to your feet, so when you go for a little wander around the park [with him] he'll be a little shadow.”

This was not only great for him, but the animals he met along the way, too. The gorillas were particularly excited to meet him, Jamie said.

“They'd get literally right up to the glass, peering into the public viewing area to see what it was.”

Fun facts!

California sea lions

• They can hold their breath for up to 20 minutes. Their teeth are black or dark brown – they don’t have enamel on their teeth like we do.

Western Lowland gorilla

• Are classed as critically endangered - the troop at Chessington are part of a European Breeding Programme. They have 32 teeth, the same as humans.

Humboldt penguins

• Every Humboldt penguin has a unique spot pattern on their front, like we have unique fingerprints. There are 18 different species of penguin, and only four live in Antarctica.

Meerkats

• A group of meerkats is known as a mob or a gang. They have dark markings around their eyes which act like sunglasses to deflect the desert Sun.

Binturongs

• The chemical compound that's in a binturong's scent glands is the same chemical that is created when popcorn pops. And so, Jackson the binturong actually smells like freshly popped popcorn!

He met the California sea lions (called Harley, Carla and Ariel) on his adventures too - so many new friends!

Not only that, but the penguins were being taught how to get weighed, and all of the other animals had their usual puzzles to get their food. The keepers don’t like to make it too easy for them, as “otherwise we’d have a lot of very fat animals” according to Jamie.

What kinds of puzzles you ask? Well for the meerkats, they might bury the food, so they’d use their incredible sense of smell to suss out where it’s hidden. The sea lions have contraptions made out of old fire hose where the fish is placed inside, so they really have to get their noses in to find their lunch.

Lockdown has changed some of their interactions with the animals however. For example, just as an extra safety precaution, the keepers wear PPE when visiting and interacting with the gorillas. There’s no evidence yet to suggest gorillas can catch Covid-19, but Jamie explains they don’t want to take any chances.

Despite having had a lot of extra time with the keepers and not being too upset that people haven’t been walking past their front doors anymore, Jamie says lots of the animals have been very happy to see visitors return.