As the UK remains under lockdown - aside for essential reasons - it's natural to suffer from a spot of cabin fever and boredom from time to time.

If you are struggling for ideas to keep yourself - or the kids - entertained during the lockdown period, animal fans can now enjoy a live online tour of Chester Zoo, as the facility virtually opens its doors to visitors.

  • How can I watch the Chester Zoo live tour?

Chester Zoo launched a live virtual tour of its facilities on March 27 to offer some animal-filled entertainment to those couped up in isolation.

The tour features close-up videos of various animals housed in the zoo, from Asian elephants, to tigers, butterflies and penguins.

The tour was held on the zoo’s Facebook page, but you can still recap all of the footage on the Chester Zoo Facebook page at your leisure.

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  • Can I watch live zoo feeds anywhere else?

If you are keen to embark on more virtual zoo tours, there are a number of live webcams that you can tune into for your daily animal fix.

1) Edinburgh Zoo

Edinburgh Zoo has live video feeds on a number of its enclosures, including the pandas, penguins, rockhopper penguin, tigers and koalas.

The live webcams are available to watch via the Edinburgh Zoo website, although the zoo has warned that there may be some technical difficulties at the moment due to extra traffic on its site.

The Zoo has advised viewers to visit its YouTube channel or its Facebook page if they cannot access the webcam feed.

Viewers are also warned that some areas of the enclosures are out of view of the cameras, and to be patient if there are currently no animals on view.

2) Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens

This wildlife park features a couple of live webcams on its website, with viewers able to enjoy a peek inside the meerkat and penguin enclosures.

3) Paignton Zoo and Animal Wildlife Park

This zoo and wildlife park has a number of live webcams to enjoy on its website. 

These include a glimpse into the enclosure of the flamingos, meerkats, and Sulawesi crested macaques.

4) Marwell Zoo

An array of live webcams are available for viewers’ entertainment on this Hampshire zoo’s website.

On offer is access to the flamingo, lemur, giraffe and penguin enclosures.

5) Dublin Zoo

Dublin Zoo has live webcam feeds into its penguin, elephant and African Savanna enclosures, which includes rhinos, giraffes, ostrich and zebras.

The zoo is currently warning the website is experiencing high levels of traffic, and it is working to increase capacity so viewers are able to tune in and watch the animals 24/7.

6) Colchester Zoo

While there aren’t any live webcams on the zoo’s main website, there are several cute animal videos featured on Colchester Zoo’s Facebook page. 

Keep checking back into the page to check out the latest ones that are added.