Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus, initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness.

COVID19-induced reduction in human disturbance enhances fattening of an overabundant goose species

Overabundant species can have major impacts on their habitat and induce trophic cascades within ecosystems. In North America, the overabundant greater snow goose (Anser caerulescens atlanticus) has been successfully controlled through special spring hunting regulations since 1999. Hunting is a source of mortality but also of disturbance, which affects the behavior and nutrient storage dynamics of staging snow geese. In 2020, the lockdown imposed by the COVID19 pandemic reduced hunting activity during their migratory stopover in Québec by at least 31%. This provided a unique opportunity to assess the effects of a sudden reduction in hunting disturbance on geese. We used long-term data on body mass combined with movement data from GPS-tracked birds in 2019 and 2020 to assess the effects of the 2020 lockdown on the spring body condition and behavior of greater snow geese. Body condition was higher in 2020 than in all years since the inception of spring hunting in 1999, except for 2019. However, in 2020 geese reached maximal body condition earlier during the staging period than in any other year and reduced by half time spent feeding in highly profitable but risky agricultural habitat in late spring compared to 2019. Although our study was not designed to evaluate the effects of the lockdown, the associated reduction in disturbance in 2020 supports the hypothesis that hunting-related disturbance negatively affects foraging efficiency and body condition in geese. Since spring body condition is related to subsequent breeding success, the lockdown could increase productivity in this overabundant population.