Zoo Animals During COVID Lockdowns: Welfare Lessons from a Unique Event

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns that closed zoos to visitors worldwide provided unique insights into how zoo animals respond to reduced human presence, with mixed and revealing welfare implications.

Key Facts

Most major zoos worldwide closed to visitors for extended periods during 2020-2021 lockdowns
Some zoo animals showed reduced stress indicators during visitor absence, particularly those sensitive to noise and unpredictable crowds
Other species including some great apes showed increased anxiety and abnormal behaviour during lockdown periods
Social species in mixed-species exhibits showed different responses based on whether inter-species relationships were positive or negative
Financial pressure during lockdowns reduced some zoos capacity to provide optimal welfare standards due to budget constraints
Lockdowns provided research opportunities to study the effects of visitor presence on animal behaviour and welfare
Several zoos published welfare monitoring data from lockdown periods, advancing understanding of visitor effects on animal wellbeing

Welfare Considerations

The pandemic lockdowns created a natural experiment in zoo animal welfare that generated valuable data on human-animal interaction effects. The finding that some animals showed improved welfare during visitor absence — including reduced stereotypic behaviour and lower stress indicators — challenges assumptions about visitor enrichment value. For other species, human visitor presence appeared to provide genuine enrichment through social engagement and visual interest. The complexity of the finding — that the same change produced opposite welfare effects in different species — underscores the importance of species-specific welfare assessment rather than generic approaches. The research legacy of lockdown welfare monitoring should inform more nuanced zoo visitor management that protects sensitive species while maintaining engagement opportunities for those that benefit.

What You Can Do

Support zoos that publish welfare monitoring data including any findings from lockdown periods
Ask zoos about their visitor management policies for species shown to be sensitive to crowd disturbance
Advocate for zoo accreditation bodies to require visitor impact assessment as part of welfare evaluation
Donate to zoo welfare research programmes investigating human-animal interaction effects on captive animal welfare
Support zoo quiet hours or visitor number limits as welfare-positive management options for sensitive species