On Sunday afternoon, high on a remote perch on Catalina Island overlooking the calm Pacific Ocean, an eaglet cracked through its shell in front of hundreds of eager viewers, all watching the intimate moment unfold on their personal screens from a distance.

“There’s The Birthday Bird!” one viewer exclaimed in the comment thread of a live video stream.

“I’m opening a bottle of champagne tonite,” another replied.

A video feed of the nest, which belongs to a mated pair of bald eagles named Chase and Cholyn, has been running online 24/7 since 2017. To the core audience, which gossip about bird behavior and Channel Island wildlife drama, the moment marked a climax in an ongoing soap opera.

“Cholyn hasn’t seen the youngster yet, right?” one viewer posted in the stream’s comment thread. “Boy, I really want to see her reaction!”

The nest feed is one of 174 live streams of nature and wildlife hosted on Explore.org, a nonprofit hub of nature web-camera feeds, and one of thousands of similar feeds streaming online around the clock. In the past month, many nature webcams in California have seen record traffic and interest. People braced against the coronavirus pandemic are looking for virtual escapes from the doldrums of life indoors.

“Explore has always been about nature as healing, but at times like this, it really proves a point,” says Charles Weingarten, Explore.org founder and CEO. “It’s meditational, it slows you down and it’s a way for people to find solace.”

Explore.org runs cams of condor nests in Big Sur, panoramic sunset views atop Mount Diablo and the beach scene in Santa Monica, which lately has been blissfully serene, Weingarten said. “You get a lot of people watching from the Midwest like, ‘Oh, my God!’ You see this beautiful coastline without any people on the beach, so it’s actually the prettiest it’s ever looked.”

Traffic to the website in March was up 85% over the same month last year, the group said, with people tuning in from around the globe, especially Europe. Viewership in Italy, which has been ravaged by COVID-19 cases, is up 1,374%, the group said. (Explore.org would not provide total traffic figures.)

Nature cams around California are operated by government land managers, research institutions, private companies and residents alike, and provide close-up views of a wide range of spectacles, from the habits of barn owls and mountain lions to the rhythmic sway of surf breaks and kelp forests.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which runs 10 web cams, has seen a 10-fold increase in viewership in the past month, said senior communications strategist Ken Peterson. The aquarium, which usually attracts about 2 million physical visitors a year, has received 5 million web clicks on the wildlife cam section of its website in the past two weeks. The majority of viewers typically tune in from California, but that has flipped since the coronavirus pandemic. Now, 81% of the site’s traffic is coming from elsewhere in the U.S., Peterson said.

The aquarium is producing more narrated programs. A recent one from the sea otter pen invited viewers to send in questions to the aquarium’s social media team in real time. The aquarium is also releasing 15-minute guided meditation episodes called “Morning MeditOcean,” featuring feeds of the ocean environment overlayed with ambient tones and a soothing voice-over.

“We’ve been trying to give people a way to have those aquarium experiences from home,” Peterson said. “Particularly with everybody on lockdown, it’s become important to stay connected to nature.”

A robust body of research behind the concept of “the nature cure” indicates that exposure to plants, wildlife and natural systems — even virtually — can reduce stress and boost self-confidence. With much of the world cooped up inside, webcams provide a window into that peace of mind, Peterson said.

With the surge in viewership, Peterson said the aquarium is evolving its video strategy beyond giving viewers a stress-release valve. While education has always been foundational to the aquarium, the narrated video feeds have opened up new teaching tools for parents who suddenly find themselves homeschooling their children.

The aquarium looks to launch more online learning modules for elementary school-aged children and to roll out other new programming that may stick around once the coronavirus pandemic subsides.

“This is just demonstrating there are more ways we can reach people in the future,” Peterson said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to say, ‘Aha, that was something that originated in a crisis that we’ll carry on going forward.’”

Gregory Thomas is the Chronicle’s editor of lifestyle and outdoors. Email: gthomas@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @GregRThomas