<
https://www.sciencealert.com/turns-out-nature-didnt-heal-while-humans-were-in-lockdown>
"As our streets emptied of humans during the COVID-19 lockdowns, people began
reporting more sightings of animals that usually wouldn't dare step foot into
the noisy chaos of our bustling cities.
The hopeful 'nature is healing' narrative emerged with its series of
increasingly absurd memes and a spate of research looking into nature's
reported changes.
"I can understand why we wanted to believe that," University of British
Columbia conservation biologist Cole Burton told Lauren Leffer at
Popular
Science. "What animals were doing in response to people was super variable,
that surprised us a bit."
Instead, using thousands of camera traps now deployed around the world, Burton
and colleagues found that while some places experienced an increase in mammal
activity, others saw a decrease.
We are a considerable danger to most animals. They justifiably fear us and will
go to great lengths to avoid us, even while relying on us for resources. But
with 8 billion of us now covering the land on Earth, steering clear of us has
become difficult.
So the researchers compared mammal activity for over 300,000 camera days before
and during the pandemic, using data from 102 sites in 21 mostly European and
North American countries which included 5,400 camera traps.
Surprisingly, they found that in human-modified habitats, animal activity
actually increased with human activity, by around 25 percent."
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
