The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus, initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness.
Freshwater ecosystems provide many ecosystem services; however, they are often degraded as a result of human activity. To address ecosystem degradation in the Laurentian Great Lakes, Canada and the United States of America established the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA). In 1987, 43 highly polluted and impacted areas were identified under the GLWQA as having one or more of 14 Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs) to the physical and chemical habitat for fish, wildlife and humans, and were designated as Areas of Concern (AOC). Subnational jurisdictions combined with local stakeholders, with support from federal governments, developed plans to remediate and restore these sites. Biotelemetry (the tracking of animals using electronic tags) provides information on the spatial ecology of fish in the wild relevant to habitat management and stock assessment. Here, seven case studies are presented where biotelemetry data were directly incorporated within the AOC Remedial Action Plan (RAP) process. Specific applications include determining seasonal fish-habitat associations to inform habitat restoration plans, identifying the distribution of pollutant-indicator species to identify exposure risk to contamination sources, informing the development of fish passage facilities to enable fish to access fragmented upstream habitats, and assessing fish use of created or restored habitats. With growing capacity for fish biotelemetry research in the Great Lakes, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of incorporating biotelemetry into AOC RAP processes to improve the science and practice of restoration and to facilitate the delisting of AOCs.
Fish in the family Lepisosteidae (hereafter, gars) have unique ganoid scales that pose inherent challenges to implanting electronic tags in their coeloms for telemetry studies. In this paper we outline a unique approach to conducting laparotomic surgery in gars, with a focus on the Longnose Gar Lepisosteus osseus. An electric rotary tool with a circular cutting blade was used to cut through the scales, and the same tool, with a drill bit, was used to create holes through which to run the suture material. The final incision into the body cavity was made with a scalpel, and the incision was expanded using surgical scissors. Using a passive acoustic telemetry array, the survival of 12 of 15 tagged Longnose Gars was confirmed over a 123‐d period based on their detection at receivers outside of their areas of capture and release. Two individuals were recaptured 17–19 weeks postsurgery and showed complete healing of the wounds with limited evidence of scarring. This approach will allow for the long‐term tagging and tracking of gars to help elucidate their ecology.
Hamilton Harbour is a large (21 km2) protected harbour located at the western end of Lake Ontario that was designated as an Area of Concern in 1985 by the International Joint Commission. As part of the designation, the fish community was deemed “impaired.” One of the long-term goals of the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan is to rehabilitate the fishery to a state, at least in part, to what it was prior to the degrading effects of industrial and municipal pollution, habitat loss, and invasive species. Since the Area of Concern designation, the nearshore fish community has been monitored regularly via a federal boat electrofishing program (1988–2013) and more recently, by a trap net program (2006–2012). During the study period, the harbour underwent significant physical and biological change which was related to both lake-wide (e.g. Dreissenids) and localized harbour events (e.g. habitat restoration). The fish community was assessed temporally using two indices of ecosystem health, the Great Lakes Index of Biotic Integrity and Proportion of Piscivore Biomass, and species-specific catch trends at unaltered sites or sites modified by habitat restoration. Early on, the fish community was dominated by tolerant species characteristic of degraded, eutrophic environments and piscivore abundance was low. The fish community responded positively to ecosystem actions during the first decade that improved water quality, increased physical habitat and reduced invasive species, but further progress was confounded by the interactions with other factors in the last decade that included new invasive species and a decline in water quality. Fish community assessments in the last decade, using both the indices found that the fish community was still impaired and dominated by non-native and pollution tolerant species. The Index of Biotic Integrity was a suitable indicator of ecosystem health strengthened by a consistent assessment with the Proportion of Piscivore Biomass index. A science based refinement of the existing Index in the future would benefit the ability to assess nearshore fish assemblages in the context of conservation goals.
We assessed fish community status for 16 nearshore areas in Lake Ontario and the upper St. Lawrence River, from 2006 to 2016, using complementary fish sampling gear types and protocols, boat electrofishing and trap nets, and the published aquatic ecosystem health indicators associated with them. Factors influencing Indices of Biotic Integrity scores included degree of exposure to the open-waters of Lake Ontario, effective fetch, and land cover and use in surrounding watersheds. Focusing on Toronto Harbour, we determined that Indices of Biotic Integrity scores were lower (45.1 and 45.6 for electrofishing and trap net gear types, respectively) than predicted (55.5 and 59.6) based on other Lake Ontario nearshore areas with similar physical/environmental conditions but seemed reasonable given the significant influence of Canada’s largest urban area, the City of Toronto. The proportion of fish community biomass comprised of piscivores (0.21 and 0.18 for electrofishing and trap nets, respectively) approached target levels (0.20) set for the Toronto Harbour fish community, and indicated a balanced trophic structure. On-going aquatic habitat remediation and creation projects on the Leslie Street Spit (including Tommy Thompson Park) and the Toronto Islands, should ensure maintenance or improvement in Indices of Biotic Integrity scores and aquatic ecosystem health generally.
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