https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/05/pandemic-lockdowns-nature-wildilfe/619054/by Brian Owens
May 30, 2021
As the coronavirus pandemic took hold last spring and people around the world went into lockdown, a certain type of news story started to spring up—the idea that, in the absence of people, nature was returning to a healthier, more pristine state. There were viral (and fake) reports of dolphins in the canals of Venice, Italy, and pumas in the streets in Santiago, Chile. But new research shows that the true effect of suddenly removing people from so many environments has turned out to be much more complex.
The researchers estimate that delays to invasive-species-control programs caused by lockdowns will have a huge impact. Failure to remove invasive mice from remote seabird-nesting islands could lead to the loss of more than 2 million chicks this year alone.
The scale of these negative impacts was unexpected, Bates says. “I thought we were going to see more positive impacts,” she says, adding that it highlights just how much some ecosystems depend on human support to keep them viable.
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