Where The Wild Things Were During Pandemic Shutdowns, According To A New Study

Reports during coronavirus closures told stories of wildlife taking advantage of empty national parks to roam freely around visitor centers, lodging areas, parking lots and other places normally packed with humans.

But that wasn't entirely true, according to new research that analyzed the movement of ten species at 14 national parks, recreation areas and preserves in 2019 and 2020.

“While some individuals and populations showed a strong response to the absence of people during park shutdowns, most did not,” Kaitlyn Gaynor, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the paper, said in a news release. “Because a lot of headlines in 2020 implied that animals were taking back our national parks and were on the streets everywhere, we expected to see a bigger effect. But it takes just a few individuals to start changing their behavior to create the perception of a larger impact.”

Gaynor and more than 60 scientists from dozens of universities and government agencies teamed up to collect the data from GPS tracking collars on 229 large mammals including wolves, bears, elks, mountain lions, moose, and bighorn sheep. 

They found that wildlife in some more developed areas, like black bears in Yosemite National Park, ventured out more during the pandemic. But overall, the shutdowns seemed to have little impact on where animals chose to spend their time.

The researchers say there could be several reasons that animal behavior didn't change in big ways. For one, the shutdowns lasted an average of 58-days, which may not have been enough time to prompt widespread wildlife adaptations. 

“Some species are just more wary of people than others, like bighorn sheep and mountain lions, while others have learned to associate humans with some benefit,” Gaynor said. 

The analysis was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Besides Yosemite, locations in the study included Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Mojave National Preserve, Grand Canyon National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Isle Royale National Park. 

John Benson, an associate professor in the School of Natural Resource at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln who also worked on the study said the pandemic provided scientists a unique opportunity.

“COVID provided ecologists with a valuable natural experiment,” Benson told Nebraska today. “We know that animals can respond strongly to humans, but it is often not clear whether they respond to the 'human footprint' of roads, trails and development, or to the humans themselves. Our study allowed us to separate the foot from the footprint to an extent."