Creatures fell silent as eclipse rolled over, zoo says

The Granby Zoo took advantage of last Monday 's total solar eclipse to study the behaviour of some of its animals.

The zoo's research and conservation department was approached by a professor of astrophysics from the Université du Québec à Montréal to participate in a study on the animals' behaviour and collect data on their reactions during the rare phenomenon.

The park is located in the Estrie region, which offered one of the most beautiful views of the total solar eclipse in southern Quebec. Though humans are fascinated by the event, few studies have been done on animals' reactions to it.

Chelsey Paquette, conservation co-ordinator at the Granby Zoo, said the park jumped at the chance to get involved. A study will be published to present the results.

“What we can infer is that light definitely has an effect on animals, and whatever data we find, the conclusions we can draw from zoo species can probably be extrapolated to wild species as well,” Paquette said. “Collecting data during a rare event to better understand how light in the presence of the sun can influence animals is very unique.”

Observers recorded the animals' activities for two days in the week before the eclipse between 2 and 5 p.m., then during the event itself and for two days in the week that followed.

The reactions they witnessed varied.

Japanese macaques had a reaction opposite to what researchers anticipated.

“We expected them to be agitated and group together and want to go to their nocturnal habitats, for example,” Paquette said. “But for the duration of the eclipse, it was almost like they stopped vocalizing, they stopped all their movements and they just turned their backs to the sun and were just Zen and calm.”

Red-crowned cranes are normally quite noisy, but they also became quiet when the eclipse reached totality, Paquette noted.

The male red panda spent most of the afternoon wandering around his enclosure, but as soon as the eclipse arrived, he climbed a tree and went to sleep with the female for the entire totality, which Paquette said was unusual.

Paquette was assigned to the Himalayan black bears.

“We thought they would probably move to their nocturnal habitat when the sun was completely covered; it was pretty much like night,” she said. “But the bears continued to sleep all afternoon and didn't seem to be influenced much by the solar eclipse.”

One observation was that prey species responded more strongly to the eclipse than predator species, Paquette said.

“It's interesting, these little observations that we were able to make.”