Many animals — primarily predators — moved activity to night to avoid increase in hikers as some prey animals were more active during day, B.C.-led survey finds.Moose, wolves, bison and more were among the hundreds of animals captured in images analyzed for a massive University of British Columbia-led study on how pandemic lockdowns affected wildlife.
"And we thought, hey, we've got a lot of these cameras out on the landscape studying animals before the pandemic hit, we can really try to use this opportunity to see if their behaviours changed and how they changed while people were undergoing lockdowns."CBC Science Specialist Darius Mahdavi takes us through a new UBC study that challenges the idea of wildlife thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reveals a complex shift in animal behaviour due to increased human presence.
"So we had this large variation of what people were doing and then we mapped on what the animals were doing."That, too, revealed some big variations, he said. Predators, such as wolves or wolverines, that tend to steer clear of humans "dropped out entirely" of some of the "busier landscapes," Burton said, as more people moved into those spaces.
He said the findings of their study are useful amid a surge in outdoor recreation post-pandemic to understand how wildlife responds to human activity and to develop conservation plans, including the possibility of setting "quiet hours" for certain spaces.
Education Education Latest News, Education Education Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: CBCToronto - 🏆 51. / 61 Read more »
Source: CBCOttawa - 🏆 68. / 51 Read more »
Source: PGCitizen - 🏆 65. / 51 Read more »
Source: BurnabyNOW_News - 🏆 14. / 77 Read more »