The federal government may be shut down, but panda fans can still get a peek at the National Zoo’s bamboo-crunching trio on its Panda Cam livestream.
Viewers can watch Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and cub Bei Bei on two Giant Panda Cam livestreams from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute. The zoo, and cams, are still operating through at least Monday using funds left over from previous years, according to a note on the institute’s web pages. Further updates will be posted Monday.
The shutdown began Saturday on the anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Lawmakers are participating in rare weekend proceedings in both the House and Senate, where they were eager to show voters they were working for a solution – or at least making their case for why the other party was at fault, The Associated Press reported. The scene highlighted the political stakes for both parties in an election-year shutdown whose consequences are far from clear.
Democrats refused to provide the Senate votes needed to reopen the government until they strike a deal with Trump protecting young immigrants from deportation, providing disaster relief and boosting spending for opioid treatment and other domestic programs, according to The AP. But Democrats blamed Trump for the impasse, saying he had negotiated deals he then backed away from.
The government shut down threw the national parks system, which includes the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, into confusion, reported the Los Angeles Times. About one-third of the nation’s more than 400 national parks are closed, the non-partisan National Parks Conservation Association told the publication. Others remain at least partly open to the public with skeletal staffing.
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York are closed. Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona remains open, while Yosemite National Park in California remains open but has minimal staffing, the publication reported.
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo, which under normal conditions remains open and free to the public 364 days a year, receives more than 2 million visitors annually from around the world. Since 1972, the zoo has been home to giant pandas on loan from China. Tian Tian and Mei Xiang’s cub, Bei Bei, was born in 2015.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.