Smithsonian to close amid government shutdown, Panda Cam to be switched off

Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

If you want to watch Panda Cam, or any of the other live streaming cameras from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, you have only a few more hours.

The cameras will be switched off Tuesday at midnight, CBS News reported.

The zoo itself will close at 9 p.m. Tuesday after the final night of ZooLights and will not reopen to visitors.

Zoo officials said that the animals will continue to be fed and cared for and that the shutdown won't affect the animals.

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The zoo is not alone in the shutdown of Smithsonian properties.

Institution officials had enough money to keep the buildings open through the holidays thanks to the prior year's funding, the Washington Post reported.

However, the money has run out.

Most of the museums, including the popular National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American Museum and Culture, and the Air and Space Museum, along with more than a dozen others, will be closed come Wednesday.

Both the East and West buildings of the National Gallery and the Sculpture Garden Skating Rink will be closed starting Thursday.

Other museums and national parks run by the government have been closed since Dec. 22, when funding ran out and a deal was not made, the Post reported.

Private historic locations, that are not funded by federal money, have been operating. Those locations include the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Museum of the Bible.

The Phillips Collections, which is among a handful of locations offering free admission to furloughed government employees with identification, actually saw daily visitors increase during the 2013 shutdown, the Post reported.

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