Many birds flocked to cities during COVID-19 lockdowns
While viral posts about dolphins returning to the canals of Venice during the 2020 lockdowns were fake news, the “nature is healing” memes weren’t altogether wrong. Reduced human activity in spring 2020, following the outbreak of COVID-19, led to considerable changes in migratory patterns and habitat use for birds across the United States and Canada, according to a study published today in Science Advances.
In general, many birds seemed to have benefited from these lockdowns, spending more time within and around urban areas, according to the research. Some species which seemed to have most enjoyed the reprieve from human activity—or at least shifted closer to civilization—were warblers and native sparrows; osprey and bald eagles; and several species of ducks and geese.
The “anthropause,” as scientists have dubbed the abrupt slowdown of human movement during the first wave of lockdowns, has allowed researchers an unprecedented opportunity to see how animals behave with less interference from us.
“The pandemic created a unique—hopefully—opportunity to understand the effects of traffic separated from the effects of the human-altered landscape at a scale that would be impossible under any other circumstances,” says study author Nicola Koper, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Manitoba.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/birds-moved-to-urban-areas-during-covid-lockdowns-anthropause
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