A large survey looking at animal habits during COVID-19 lockdowns has provided new insights into how humans can better coexist with their wild counterparts.
It also has wonderful photographs of bison, grizzly bears, baby moose, and other animals in their herbaceous habitats.
The study, published Monday in Nature Ecology and Evolution, involved 120 researchers from around the world and 5,000 camera traps that take pictures when activated by the movement of wild animals.
It was led by Cole Burton, a wildlife biologist and associate professor at the University of British Columbia, who said the studies were based on the concept that as human activity slows due to COVID-19 restrictions, animal activity may simply increase.
“We all hear some of those emerging stories, you know, of animals running through the streets or dolphins swimming in canals,” Burton said in an interview with CBC News.
“And we thought, hey, we have a lot of those cameras in the landscape to examine animals before the pandemic hits, we can try to take this opportunity to see if their behaviors have changed and how they’ve changed while other people were cooped up. “
A study published in the journal Science in July 2023, for example, indicated that when human mobility was limited by lockdown measures, wildlife temporarily became aware of this: they moved closer to roads and moved more freely across the landscape.
While this survey focused largely on animal behavior as humans left urban spaces and roads, Burton’s paintings focused on natural spaces and parks, which in some cases saw a greater presence of people at the peak of COVID-19 restrictions, especially indoors. to giant urban spaces where other people were looking for tactics to socialize and get out of the house.
“We started from the concept that, you know, all of those spaces would have fewer people and the number of animals could increase because they would be freed from this kind of tension of being around other people,” Burton said.
“But what we found on the cameras was that there was a huge variation. . . Some places have noticed a lot of human activity, or even an increase in activity, while others, such as provincial parks, have been completely closed for a while. , so they’ve noticed huge discounts on people.
“So we had this huge variation of what other people were doing, and then we mapped out what the animals were doing. “
It also revealed giant variations, he said. Predators, such as wolves or wolverines, which have a tendency toward humans, have “completely abandoned” some of the “busier landscapes,” Burton said, as more people have moved into those spaces. .
Conversely, some prey, such as deer, elk, and moose, increased their activity as more people settled, likely due to relief in predator numbers.
Another fact through Burton is that there turns out to be an increase in the number of animals coming out at night as a reaction to the increased number of humans coming out during the day.
“It would be kind of a coping mechanism where, yes, they were looking to take advantage of the environment that other people were in, but they didn’t need to have face-to-face encounters, so they used it more at night. “
He said the effects of his study are useful amid the rise of post-pandemic recreation to understand how wildlife responds to human activity and expand conservation plans, adding the option to set “quiet hours” for certain spaces.
“To help the animals there, we would possibly want to think about making sure they can safely navigate busy roads at night or restrict the number of human activities in the mid-afternoon in some of those areas. “
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