“…The negative response of mammals to human recreation contrasts with some recent observational work finding highly mixed responses, (i.e., species responding both positively and negatively), to recreation or human presence 9,11,12 but agrees with some other work taking advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown natural experiment 38,39 . Species responding negatively to recreation in our analysis include a mix of large and small carnivores and ungulates.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 85%
“…The cessation of human activity that occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine how human activity impacts species mortality, behavior, and habitat use [37][38][39][40] . However, not all human activity is equal, with human presence in many places also associated with other forms of disturbance such as hunting or habitat modification 12 .…”
Human presence exerts complex effects on the ecology of species, which has implications for biodiversity persistence in protected areas experiencing increasing human recreation levels. However, the difficulty of separating the effect on species of human presence from other environmental or disturbance gradients remains a challenge. The cessation of human activity that occurred with COVID-19 restrictions provides a ‘natural experiment’ to better understand the influence of human presence on wildlife. Here, we use a COVID-19 closure within a heavily visited and highly protected national park (Glacier National Park, MT, USA) to examine how ‘low-impact’ recreational hiking affects the spatiotemporal ecology of a diverse mammal community. Based on data collected from camera traps when the park was closed and then subsequently open to recreation, we found consistent negative responses to human recreation across most of our assemblage of 24 species, with fewer detections, reduced site use, and decreased daytime activity. Our results suggest that the dual mandates of national parks and protected areas to conserve biodiversity and promote recreation have potential to be in conflict, even for presumably innocuous recreational activities. There is an urgent need to understand the fitness consequences of these spatiotemporal changes to inform management decisions in protected areas.
“…The negative response of mammals to human recreation contrasts with some recent observational work finding highly mixed responses, (i.e., species responding both positively and negatively), to recreation or human presence 9,11,12 but agrees with some other work taking advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown natural experiment 38,39 . Species responding negatively to recreation in our analysis include a mix of large and small carnivores and ungulates.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 85%
“…The cessation of human activity that occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine how human activity impacts species mortality, behavior, and habitat use [37][38][39][40] . However, not all human activity is equal, with human presence in many places also associated with other forms of disturbance such as hunting or habitat modification 12 .…”
Human presence exerts complex effects on the ecology of species, which has implications for biodiversity persistence in protected areas experiencing increasing human recreation levels. However, the difficulty of separating the effect on species of human presence from other environmental or disturbance gradients remains a challenge. The cessation of human activity that occurred with COVID-19 restrictions provides a ‘natural experiment’ to better understand the influence of human presence on wildlife. Here, we use a COVID-19 closure within a heavily visited and highly protected national park (Glacier National Park, MT, USA) to examine how ‘low-impact’ recreational hiking affects the spatiotemporal ecology of a diverse mammal community. Based on data collected from camera traps when the park was closed and then subsequently open to recreation, we found consistent negative responses to human recreation across most of our assemblage of 24 species, with fewer detections, reduced site use, and decreased daytime activity. Our results suggest that the dual mandates of national parks and protected areas to conserve biodiversity and promote recreation have potential to be in conflict, even for presumably innocuous recreational activities. There is an urgent need to understand the fitness consequences of these spatiotemporal changes to inform management decisions in protected areas.
“…Here, we build on a long-term monitoring effort that uses the aforementioned transects to document fish density and examine how the abrupt reduction of marine-based activities during lockdown affected fish populations within and outside of MPAs at Moorea. Furthermore, as some evidence suggests that poaching rates may have increased during lockdown periods [5], and given the widespread reliance on tourism for much of the nation's employment [9], we also deployed social surveys to local amateur and professional fishers to gain insights into the impacts this had on their fishing practices. Figure 1Map of sampling sites around Moorea, French Polynesia.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The onset of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic led to the unprecedented closing of international borders, halting of commercial activities and lockdown of resident populations [ 1 ]. These sudden changes have recalibrated the impacts that humans are having on the world's ecosystems, with reports suggesting increases in air and water quality [ 2 ], the reduction of various pollutants [ 3 , 4 ] and the encroachment of species into areas left absent by humans [ 5 , 6 ]. While the impacts of lockdown may offer initial relief to ecosystems, the resulting breakdown of supply chains and reduction in employment may also present challenges, especially to remote populations, leading to a greater reliance on harvesting resources directly from the surrounding environment [ 7 ].…”
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a reduction in human activities and restriction of all but essential movement for much of the world's population. A large, but temporary, increase in air and water quality followed, and there have been several reports of animal populations moving into new areas. Extending on long-term monitoring efforts, we examined how coral reef fish populations were affected by the government-mandated lockdown across a series of Marine Protected Area (MPA) and non-Marine Protected Area (nMPA) sites around Moorea, French Polynesia. During the first six-week lockdown that Moorea experienced between March and May 2020, increases (approx. two-fold) in both harvested and non-harvested fishes were observed across the MPA and nMPA inner barrier reef sites, while no differences were observed across the outer barrier sites. Interviews with local amateur and professional fishers indicated that while rules regarding MPA boundaries were generally followed, some subsistence fishing continued in spite of the lockdown, including within MPAs. As most recreational activities occur along the inner reef, our data suggest that the lockdown-induced reduction in recreational activities resulted in the recolonization of these areas by fishes, highlighting how fish behaviour and space use can rapidly change in our absence.
“…One of the many unintended consequences of Covid-19 lockdowns across much of the globe was a documented increase in poaching in many nations, including Malaysia (Amat and Abdullah 2021), India (Behera et al 2022), Nepal (Koju et al 2021) and several African countries (Cherkaoui et al 2020;Ndlovu, Matipano, and Miliyasi 2021). Top-down regulation of wildlife was particularly fragile in Africa because it was relatively new there, largely implemented two decades ago during a "bushmeat crisis" that threatened the livelihoods of growing numbers of poor agriculturalists and led to increased regulatory attempts (Nasi et al 2008).…”
Wildlife conservation is an important component of environmental sustainability and can be improved by reviewing the performance of its three major models – common pool, top-down regulatory, and private resource -- under varying environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Generally, the private resource model is the most sustainable because it provides the best incentives to balance the needs of humans and wildlife, to maintain general wildlife habitat, and to adapt quickly to changing environmental and/or socioeconomic conditions. Top-down or “command and control” regulation, however, can be employed as a model of last resort if the private resource model shows signs of failing to protect specific species from local extirpation or extinction, which it is most likely to do for migratory species, species with close commercial substitutes, and species with no direct commercial value. Top-down regulators may also be needed to enforce property rights arrangements like catch shares and to monitor resources that remain in the common pool in the event that socioeconomic or environmental conditions change sufficiently to trigger the tragedy of the commons.
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