Penguins missing visitors, say keepers, at locked-down Thai Zoo

The flip flop sound of penguin feet rang out at an empty zoo in Thailand on Thursday as a parade of birds waddled out of their enclosure for their daily splash in a pool to keep them healthy during a COVID-19 lockdown.

Thailand is fighting its biggest coronavirus outbreak yet and has introduced strict movement curbs that have seen many public places, including zoos, shuttered. “I noticed that they felt a bit confused because when they walk out, there’s usually a lot of people waiting for them,” said Tossapol Kosol, a penguin specialist at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo just outside Bangkok, the Southeast Asian country’s capital.

“Now when they come out and there’s no one here, they sometimes stop to look around, as if they’re wondering where all the people have gone,” he said. Over the last year, Tossapol and his colleagues at the zoo have had to find ways to exercise the animals despite…