While humans were forced to stay indoors amid the global lockdown in 2020 and 2021, land animals came out and scientists have now documented behavioural changes in them.
In Short
- 174 researchers came together to study animal behaviour during Covid lockdown
- The team compared the mammals’ movements during the first period of lockdowns
- The study is published in the journal Science
By India Today Science Desk: As humans continue to emerge from the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, more and more studies and scientific research is pouring into how it changed our world forever. A new study now reveals that the pandemic had a different effect on wildlife.
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While humans were forced to stay indoors amid the global lockdown in 2020 and 2021, land animals traveled farther, and scientists have now documented behavioural changes in them.
A team of 174 researchers came together to study the massive impact seen on wild animals as human beings were limited to the confines of their homes.
The study published in the journal Science states that the policies to reduce human movement during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic produced a kind of natural experiment to observe how human activities affect animal behavior. The team used GPS tracking data from 2300 individual mammals of 43 species to document the changes.
“There were many media reports that nature was recovering during those first lockdowns. For example, cougars were roaming the streets of Santiago, Chile, but we wanted to know: is there any evidence of this? Or were people simply paying more attention to everything while being at home?” Marlee A. Tucker, who led the study, said in a statement.
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The team compared the mammals’ movements during the first period of lockdowns, from January to mid-May 2020, with movements during the same months a year earlier.
They observed that during strict lockdowns, animals traveled up to 73 percent longer distances in a period of 10 days than the year before when there were no lockdowns. The analysis also revealed that animals occurred on average 36 percent closer to roads than the year before as the roads were quieter during strict lockdowns.
“In contrast, in areas with less strict lockdowns, we saw that animals travelled shorter distances. This may have to do with the fact that during those lockdowns, people were actually encouraged to go into nature. As a result, some nature areas were busier than before COVID-19,” says Thomas Mueller, who designed the study together with Tucker.
The team concluded that lockdowns rapidly altered some spatial behaviors, highlighting variable but substantial impacts of human mobility on wildlife worldwide. Researchers believe that animals can respond directly to changes in human behaviour.
“This offers hope for the future, because in principle this means that making some adjustments to our own behaviour could have a positive effect on animals,” Tucker added.
NOTE – This article was originally published in indiatoday and can be viewed here
Tags: #animals, #climate, #climatechaange, #covid-19, #environment, #getgreengetgrowing, #gngagritech, #greenstories, #human, #nature, #taiger
