Due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection Ueno Zoo has been temporarily closed twice, from February 29 to June 22, 2020 and from December 26 to the present. This is the longest period of closure since the park opened. The temporary closures have forced us to drastically change our annual business plan. We had to ask visitors to "enjoy the zoo in a new way" and avoid the so-called "three densities" during the approximately six months the zoo was open.

In addition, many events such as the "Ueno ZOO School," which is held in the zoo every year, the acceptance of student interns, the annual midsummer night zoo, and the New Year's event to introduce the Chinese zodiac for the new year were either suspended or held online. Furthermore, petting events at the Children's Zoo have also been suspended, and children no longer have the opportunity to touch small animals.

Ueno Zoo Now, we want you to feel the life of animals up close and personal. We want them to learn about animals by mobilizing all of their senses. We have always believed that there must be something that we can convey because of our commitment to realism, but it has become difficult to put this into practice during the temporary closing of the park.

Therefore, we are actively strengthening our information dissemination efforts, such as posting articles on the website "Tokyo Zoo Net" and distributing videos via Twitter, in order to convey information on how the animals are doing. In addition, we have tried new educational dissemination tools for the first time, such as the "Web version of Ueno ZOO School," to disseminate information virtually, although we were a bit puzzled by this. In addition, in order to have participants feel the smells and sounds that cannot be conveyed by digital tools alone, we encouraged them to "visit a nearby zoo and observe if you have a chance." Many participants voluntarily went to a nearby zoo to observe, and they reported the results of their observations in a lively manner at the Web debriefing session.


A scene from the "Web version of Ueno ZOO School" held using the video conferencing tool Zoom.
Meanwhile, with the spread of COVID-19, people are spending more time at home due to requests to refrain from non-essential outings and the so-called "stay-at-home" lifestyle. Takeout and delivery of food have increased, and it is said that plastic waste has also increased. This increased environmental burden will worsen the habitat of wild animals and exacerbate the decline in their populations.

In recent years, plastic waste has become a serious global problem, and just as the Tokyo Metropolitan Zoo and Aquarium announced in January of last year that it would be working to reduce the use of plastic in its restaurants and gift shops, this announcement came as a surprise. notice Those who used the service highly praised it as "an initiative unique to a zoo that takes environmental considerations into account." We will continue this initiative in the future.

Now is the time to actively engage in virtual information dissemination using digital tools, create opportunities for people to become interested in nature and wildlife, and proactively address local environmental issues. By doing so, we want to further refine our real-world educational outreach activities and restart new challenges.

Ueno Zoological Gardens
director Yutaka Fukuda

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(February 21, 2021)