Johannesburg - As humans were forced into strict Covid lockdowns in 2020, the movement of wildlife changed, apparently as animals took advantage of a temporarily human-free world.
It has become known as the “anthropause”, in which countries saw drastic reductions in human mobility and traffic volumes.
South Africans experienced the worst of it when, at its strictest, people were confined to their homes and only allowed out to shop. In this quieter world, the question was what the animals were up too.
Now a group of international researchers have worked out a way of finding out.
Through GPS tracking data from 76 studies, representing 43 species from around the world, researchers were able to take a peek into what some mammals were up to in the middle of this Covid-lockdown world. South African tracking data was also used in the study.
What they did was to evaluate how animal behaviour changed during the initial lockdown between February and April 2020 to that of the same period the year before.
The researchers found that in locations such as South Africa, where Covid-19 lockdown policies were stricter, animals were travelling on average 73% further than they had in the previous year. This suggested that the tracked animals were exploring more of their landscape.
“Another interesting thing we found is that they came closer to roads, so there was less road avoidance,” Dr Aafke Schipper, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, told the Saturday Star.
Little is known about the true impact of roads on animal behaviour. What is understood is that the conservation of many species is reliant on their ability to cross roads safely. Roadways also reduce habitat and limit movement, and are a leading cause of death because of accidents.
“There are two sides to this type of research. One is that it is purely curiosity-driven. You think: ‘Why do animals do what they do?’ Then there is the conservation side of things. How can you help animals cross roads, through the likes of tunnels,” says Schipper.
The problem with their research was that the study was confined to large mammals (in southern Africa, it was elephants). But with GPS trackers getting smaller, the researchers believe they could expand the project in the future.
“It would be neat to see how the smaller animals’ behaviour changed,” says Schipper.
The researchers are considering possibly following up on their research and examining more GPS tracking data.
But other researchers believe that it is a start.
“Tucker (the lead author) provided a comprehensive answer about the ability of some animals to make use of human-inhabited areas and even expand their habitats when human activity declines,” wrote Colleen Cassady St Clair and Sage Raymond, who were not part of the study, in a related article on the research.
“Their results highlight the environmental impact of vehicle activity, which is discussed less often publicly than the effects of emissions, permanent road infrastructure, and habitat loss,” they said.