The COVID-19 stay at home order has put a damper on the early part of Spring. Cancellations are ongoing across the country, including schools, sports, businesses, and much more. Zoos are included in this as well, with most across the country closing to help ‘flatten the curve’. Luckily, many have chipped in with “Facebook Live” events to help create programming for families. Another way to stay connected to zoos has been through our Live Zoo Webcams page.
From the beginning of our blog, we had a Live Zoo Webcams page, where you can watch animals from home. I personally would frequent a few zoo webcams on my lunch break. My go-to webcam was usually the Reid Park Zoo to watch their elephants. I think it’s safe to say that I was one of only a few people frequenting this page. However, once the stay at home order was in affect across the country, our stats started booming! We went from seeing maybe 100 visits to our site per day, to over 1,000! The Zoo Webcams were the main culprit of this, bringing in about 80% of our activity. We’ve seen links to our Webcams page on sites all over the world, including residential life at Northern Michigan University, a public library on Long Island, dozens of Google Classroom and Schoology sites across the United States, and even a Mom’s Group website in the United Kingdom!
Since you clearly have gotten the message and know about our Zoo Webcams, I wanted to share stats with you on which ones are the most watched. This has shifted over time, especially as we added in new Webcams. Here’s a breakdown of what’s been happening over the past three weeks.
Overall Results
The most constant zoos across the past three weeks for Webcam clicks have been the Atlanta Zoo, and the Chattanooga Zoo. These zoos feature Webcams of pandas, meerkats, snow leopards, tamarins, and spotted genets. They are the only zoos to be in the top five in the results for all three weeks. On top of that, Atlanta has been number one each week, and Chattanooga has been number two each week. I’m not sure if their proximity to the top of the list (which is alphabetical) is the main culprit. However, they offer animals that most other zoos on this list do not. The other Webcams in the overall top five are the Georgia Aquarium, Houston Zoo, and San Diego Zoo.
March 16-22
In the first week of booming traffic on the Zoo Webcams page, Atlanta Zoo topped the list, averaging 110 clicks per day! Traffic has since drastically decreased. However, this week was the first for e-learning for most across the country, and also wasn’t a week of Spring Break for many. We believe both led to high traffic numbers. Following Atlanta was the Chattanooga Zoo, at 81 clicks per day. Rounding out the top five was the Houston Zoo (61), the El Paso Zoo (55), and the Blank Park Zoo (54). The Milwaukee Zoo and San Diego Zoo each brought in more than 50 clicks per day, which in later weeks would have placed near the top.
March 23-29
The second week of high traffic saw smaller numbers, but still had Atlanta Zoo (86 clicks per day) at the top, with Chattanooga Zoo (80) right behind. The Houston Zoo (64) maintained its spot at third on the list. Several new zoos were added in this week. One of them was the Georgia Aquarium. It placed fourth with 63 clicks per day. The San Diego Zoo (60) rounded out the top five.
March 30-April 5
The most recent week was Spring Break for most of the Chicagoland area. As such, traffic dipped way down. Despite the drop in traffic, the Atlanta Zoo (48) and Chattanooga Zoo (42) stayed in the top two spots. The Detroit Zoo jumped into the top five for the first time with 39 visits per day, followed by the San Diego Zoo (36) and the Georgia Aquarium (31). The Houston Zoo dropped out of the top five for the first time, tying for sixth with the Milwaukee Zoo at just under 31 clicks per day.
What’s Next?
We’re continuing to look for more Zoo Webcams that we can link to our page. We’ve also included links to the Facebook pages of zoos that are doing Facebook Live events. The most popular of these has by far been the Cincinnati Zoo, which airs daily at 3pm Eastern.
In addition to the Webcams, we’re creating educational materials. These can be supplemental activities for your student’s e-learning or home schooling, or they can be fun brain breaks to do throughout the day. Be sure to check them out if you have school-aged children at home…or quite frankly if you’re past school and are just bored (aren’t we all?).
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