After Closing Down, This Aquarium Lets Its Penguins Go On A ‘Field Trip’
Different facilities throughout the world have shut down their doors to people to fight off the spread of the coronavirus. Shedd Aquarium is not an exception to this lockdown. Located in Chicago, the aquarium has been taking more than 2 million guests annually. However, to protect the community, its doors have been locked for about 2 weeks now. Instead of having the aquarium empty, the workers in the aquarium replaced human visitors with penguins. These aquatic birds were released to explore the entire aquarium for the first time.
Social media is the main place that closed facilities try to connect with people. This is exactly what Shedd Aquarium did and the videos that they’ve posted became viral.
It’s no secret that people love penguins, however, they’ve completely gone ballistic when they saw these penguins walking around and exploring other animals and meeting fish. More than 100k people liked the videos on Twitter which resulted in the aquarium promising additional content.
They wrote that even though “this may be a strange time for us, these days feel normal for animals at Shedd. Our caregivers are constantly providing new experiences for the animals to explore and express their natural behaviors.”
Penguins in the Amazon?! 🐧🌴
Some of the penguins went on a field trip to meet other animals at Shedd. Wellington seemed most interested in the fishes in Amazon Rising! The black-barred silver dollars also seemed interested in their unusual visitor. pic.twitter.com/KgYWsp5VQD
— Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 15, 2020
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 Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 16, 2020
While this may be a strange time for us, these days feel normal for animals at Shedd. Our caregivers are constantly providing new experiences for the animals to explore and express their natural behaviors with. Let us know what penguin activities you would like to see! (3/3) pic.twitter.com/ftlow7iPHl
— Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 16, 2020
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced on Friday that public gatherings of more than 1,000 people needed to be banned. This is why many facilities and venues had to be closed or canceled so that the spread of the COVID-19 will be reduced.
Sources: www.sheddaquarium.org