With coronavirus pushing humans across the globe indoors under lockdown, animals are venturing into places rarely seen before.
Deer in Japan, foxes in the UK, elk in Northern America – across the globe excited city residents are reporting seeing wild animals boldly go where no wild animals have gone before – deep into the hearts of our cities.
For researchers, the lockdown and the subsequent impact on wildlife behaviour is a catch-22 situation because as Blandine Doligez, a researcher from the Laboratory of Biometrics and Evolutionary Biology (LBBE) of the University of Lyon 1, told Euronews “it represents an experience on an exceptional scale, unmatched to date, across an entire country or even a continent” that they cannot study because they’re stuck at home.
“This would provide a wealth of particularly important and interesting information on the impact of human activity on wild bird populations in urban areas,” she said.
If the confinement lasts until May, researchers also won’t be able to carry out their usual capture and tagging campaigns. Jean-Michel Gaillard, director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France told Euronews: “This period is certainly interesting in theory, but unfortunately, there will be no one to monitor it.”
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