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Impact on animal behavior

Zookeepers, naturalists, university researchers, and citizen scientists positioned themselves to observe animal behavior during the eclipse, some with the goal of comparing results with observations made during the 2017 total eclipse, and others opening new avenues of animal behavioral research. Wildlife and zoo animals were observed along the path of totality and in areas that saw only a partial eclipse.

Wildlife

Wildlife sometimes act in unusual ways during a total solar eclipse. This small raptor took flight during totality of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse at Kincaid Lake in the Shawnee National Forest in Illinois.

Changes in wild animal behavior were recorded during the eclipse, especially among birds. These changes were similar to those observed during the 2017 eclipse, but more pronounced. Weather radar was adapted to monitor the activity of flying animals, and birds were observed to decrease their daytime activities. Radar imaging demonstrated “noticeable decreases in typical daytime biological activities such as the movements of hawks and other soaring and insect-eating birds.” Owls began hooting, and vultures and other birds began to roost. A team from Purdue University, observing a variety of ecosystems on wild-lands maintained by the university near Butlerville, Indiana recorded the songs of 20 different species of birds going quiet, leaving only the songs of the robin and the tufted titmouse during the eclipse. Birding students at the University of Vermont observed species at Lake Champlain during the eclipse that had not been observed there before, including bohemian waxwings, red-tailed hawks, and pileated woodpeckers.

Insects and frogs in the wild were also observed making their nighttime sounds. Cicadas in Arizona stopped singing when the sun was 50% blocked during their partial eclipse. Spring peepers, a type of nocturnal frog, were heard intermittently while the eclipse was partial, but they abruptly filled the soundscape at the moment of totality. Wild cricket frogs were observed in Fort Worth, Texas behaving similarly.

Zoo animals

As in wildlife populations, captive avian species seemed most affected by the eclipse. At the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, ostriches returned to their barn and began their evening rituals, such as preening and grooming each other. When the sunlight returned, the ostriches left their barn and resumed their daytime activities. At the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas, flamingos bunched together, vocalized, and began marching together, which is a bonding behavior in flamingos. A troop of gorillas at that zoo also gathered at the door to their indoor enclosure, where they are normally fed each evening, and appeared to act confused and frustrated, as if having missed their evening meal. Two aldabra tortoises at the same zoo were observed to rear on their hind legs and attack the door to their indoor enclosure, damaging the door’s frame. A group of elephants at the Columbus zoo gathered together and began thumping their trunks on the ground. Lions at the Buffalo Zoo started roaring just before totality.

Not all zoo animals reacted to the eclipse, nor did researchers expect them to. During the 2017 eclipse, researchers at the Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina observed behavior changes in about 75% of species. Adam Hartstone-Rose, a biology professor at North Caroina State University explained:

We think that the reason that some animals go from that very mild level of stress to a more excessive level of stress is because people do crazy things during eclipses, and we think that the animals are just much more perceptive of our own emotionality during an eclipse than we previously sort of gave them credit for.

Zoologists and volunteers at Parc Safari, a zoo in Hemmingford, Quebec noted very little change in the animals they observed there, including giraffes, lions, hyenas, wolves, lynx, llamas, alpacas, and dromedaries. Hyenas vocalized during the eclipse, but there were other coinciding events that might have contributed to that behavior. The zoo’s director of zoology, Aurélien Berthelot, did not expect much activity from their mammals. For example, lions sleep up to eighteen hours per day. Some roared during the eclipse while others slept. Analysis of their observations are continuing.