The Assiniboine Park Conservancy in Winnipeg is exploring a new way to let visitors behind their doors three times a week.

Yesterday, the Assiniboine Park Conservancy's zoo saw an "overwhelming response" to their first scheduled live stream.

Laura Cabak, Manager of Communications and Public Relations for the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, says that while they have held live streams in the past, the zoo saw tens of thousands of people watching online.

"People love animals. People love nature."

Over 3500 people watched live on Monday's live stream and the video now has over 44 thousand views. On a busy summer day, the zoo could see up to five thousand people throughout the day.

"A lot of things are changing right now and we are doing our best to adapt, just like everybody else," Cabak says. "Right now we are just focussing on the immediate future."

The zoo is currently closed to the public but people wanting to see the zoo's animals can tune in to the zoo's Facebook page on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next two weeks at 1 p.m.

The zoo has a two-week schedule of live streams to highlight the different areas of the zoo. Yesterday's stream demonstrated how meerkats play and eat.

"We wanted to do this as a way to bring people closer in a safe way, and it looks like that is what happened," Cabak says.

The video had viewers from across the globe, including the Philippines and Peru.

"People love animals. People love nature," she says. "Right now we are all feeling a bit cooped up...I think that the common ground is that people can come together through a shared experience."

Cabak says that it was "really neat to see" people sharing photos of their families watching the live stream.

"We are very aware of the number of kids that are home right now," she says. "We are tailoring our social media to that audience."

During the live stream with the meerkats, Cabak says they received a lot of interesting questions from children learning and engaging with the animals. She adds that one child asked if meerkats were friends with warthogs. The zoo was able to use that question to help explain which animals meerkats interact with.

The zoo plans on continuing their regularly scheduled live-streams until April 3.