Raptor research during the COVID-19 pandemic provides invaluable opportunities for conservation biology

Authors acknowledge financial support from: the Dean Amadon Grant of the Raptor Research Foundation (to PS); the Raptor Research and Conservation Foundation, Mumbai, and the University of Oxford's Global Challenges Research Fund through the Ind-Ox initiative (KCD00141-AT13.01) (both to NK), and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF9881) and the National Geographic Society (NGS-82515R-20) (both to CR).Research is underway around the world to examine how a wide range of animal species have responded to reduced levels of human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this perspective article, we argue that raptors are particularly well-suited for investigating potential ‘anthropause’ effects, and that the resulting insights will provide much-needed impetus for global conservation efforts. Lockdowns likely alter many of the extrinsic factors that normally limit raptor populations. These environmental changes are in turn expected to influence – mediated by behavioral and physiological responses – the intrinsic (demographic) factors that ultimately determine raptor population levels and distributions. Using this framework, we identify a range of research opportunities and conservation challenges that have arisen during the pandemic. The COVID-19 anthropause allows raptor researchers to address fundamental and applied research objectives in a large-scale, quasi-experimental, well-replicated manner. Importantly, it will be possible to separate the effects of human disturbance and anthropogenic landscape modifications. We explain how high-quality datasets, accumulated for a diverse range of raptor species before, during, and after COVID-19 lockdowns, can be leveraged for powerful comparative analyses that attempt to identify drivers of particular response types. To facilitate and coordinate global collaboration, we are hereby launching the ‘Global Anthropause Raptor Research Network’ (GARRN). We invite the international raptor research community to join this inclusive and diverse group, to tackle ambitious analyses across geographic regions, ecosystems, species, and gradients of lockdown perturbation. Under the most tragic of circumstances, the COVID-19 anthropause has afforded an invaluable opportunity to significantly boost global raptor conservation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns on wildlife-vehicle collisions in the UK

Wildlife–vehicle collisions (WVCs) cause millions of vertebrate mortalities globally, threatening population viability and influencing wildlife behaviour and survival. Traffic volume and speed can influence wildlife mortality on roads, but roadkill risk is species specific and depends on ecological traits. The COVID-19 pandemic, and associated UK-wide lockdowns, offered a unique opportunity to investigate how reducing traffic volume alters WVC. These periods of reduced human mobility have been coined the ‘anthropause’. We used the anthropause to identify which ecological traits may render species vulnerable to WVC. We did this by comparing the relative change in WVC of species with differing traits before and during the anthropause. We used Generalised Additive Model predictions to assess which of the 19 species most frequently observed as WVC in the UK exhibited changes in road mortality during two lockdown periods, March–May 2020 and December 2020–March 2021, relative to the same time periods in previous years (2014–2019). Compositional data analysis was used to identify ecological traits associated with changes in the relative number of observations during lockdown periods compared to previous years. WVC were, across all species, 80% lower during the anthropause than predicted. Compositional data analysis revealed proportionally fewer reports of nocturnal mammals, urban visitors, mammals with greater brain mass and birds with a longer flight initiation distance. Species that have several of these traits, and correspondingly significantly lower than predicted WVC during lockdowns, included badgers Meles meles, foxes Vulpes vulpes, and pheasants, Phasianus colchicus; we posit they stand to benefit most from reduced traffic, and, of the species studied here, have highest mortality under ‘normal’ traffic levels. This study identifies traits and species that may have experienced a temporary reprieve during the anthropause, and highlights the impacts of traffic-induced mortality on species numbers and ultimately on trait frequency in a road-dominated landscape. By taking advantage of reductions in traffic offered by the anthropause, we can understand how vehicles influence wildlife survival and behaviour and may be exerting a selective force for certain species and traits

Urban roadkill assessment in Vienna reveals low incidence rates

An important factor in the decline of global animal diversity is road traffic, where many animals are killed. This study aimed to collect data on vertebrate roadkill in the city of Vienna, Austria, between 2017 and 2022 using three different approaches: citizen science, systematic monitoring by bicycle along a 15 km route, and systematic monitoring on foot along a 3 km route. During 359 monitoring events, only four roadkill incidences (three Erinaceus sp., one Rattus sp.) were found by bicycle or on foot. At the same time citizen scientists reported 1 roadkill squirrel on the bicycle route and 84 roadkill incidences for the entire city area. Hedgehogs and urban birds were commonly reported species by citizen scientists. Although no amphibian or reptile roadkill was found during systematic monitoring, they were reported by citizen scientists. The low number of roadkill incidences found suggests a potentially low population density that makes the impact of roadkill even more severe – a hypothesis that should be further investigated amidst the global decline in biodiversity.</p

COVID-19 and Change

The purpose of this article is to identify and describe the changes that have taken place or are taking place throughout our societal structures as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It draws from published articles that have reported on the changes in many different areas of research to assemble a picture of the overall impact. It starts with the origin of the pandemic and how the different countries responded. To continue with the changes in many areas. It might change our human species, the world order, globalization, the capitalistic system, governance, civil and human rights, climate and nature, the economy, the influence of science, the food production, the Future of Work, Pensions and Universal Basic Income, the spread of cryptocurrency, the changes in Health Care, family structures and living, the way we learn, travel, religion and mass gatherings. The article discusses the coming out of the lockdown and the scenarios after coming out of the lockdown and ends with the conclusions

Elephants in the Room: COVID-19 Pandemic Political Ecologies of Tourism in Tanzania

The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth unprecedented and ever-changing crisis and disruption to societies and economies around the globe.[1] As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to interrupt travel worldwide, the tourism industry, and the countries who rely on it as a major source of income, are in crisis. These processes have reconfigured economic capital flows and foreign investment in the global south. This is particularly the case in Tanzania, as tourism was Tanzania’s highest foreign exchange earner and accounted for 17% of Tanzania’s gross domestic product in 2019.[2] This project draws upon a political ecology framework to examine the Tanzanian state response for tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic from February 2020-July 2021. I employ semi-structured interviews, discourse analysis and archival research of Tanzanian state economic and tourism policy documents, economic reports, views and decisions of hotel owners and operators, flows of tourists to and from Tanzania, and news media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic from February 2020 to July 2021. I reveal how historical and contemporary power relations impact and influence Tanzanian state policy responses for tourism as well as the social and economic outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic policies on tourism on Mafia Island, Tanzania. Mafia Island is an important tourist destination with Africa’s largest marine park swimming with high biodiversity including whale sharks. My research reveals how the Tanzanian state responded to the pandemic in a variety of ways. This included initially closing borders, to denying the existence of COVID-19 and reopening borders without restrictions for tourists. I show how the Tanzanian state centralized power and justified opening the country to tourism by creating narratives of fear, the divine, and misinformation about COVID-19. In addition, neo-colonial legacies and logic, economic dependence on foreign capital, and state structuring were found to be important factors in shaping how the tourist sector in Tanzania was affected by state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than an opportunity for transformation as some pandemic scholars have argued, I find a reinstallation of unevenness producing further entrenchment in economic dependency on international financial institutions and colonial relations within the tourist industry.[3] [1] Al-Ali, Nadje. “Covid-19 and Feminism in the Global South: Challenges, Initiatives and Dilemmas.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 27, no. 4 (November 1, 2020): 333–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506820943617.; Fernando, Jude L. “The Virocene Epoch: the vulnerability nexus of viruses, capitalism and racism.” Journal of Political Ecology 27, no. 1 (January 21, 2020). https://doi.org/10.2458/v27i1.23748.; Eaves, LaToya, and Karen Falconer Al-Hindi. “Intersectional Geographies and COVID-19.” Dialogues in Human Geography 10, no. 2 (July 1, 2020): 132–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620935247.; [2] Masare, Alawi. “Why Credit to Private Sector Growth Slowed to 3-Year Low.” The Citizen. April 22, 2021, sec. Magazine. https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/magazines/-why-credit-to-private-sector-growth-slowed-to-3-year-low-3372814.; Kombe, Charles. “Tanzania Opening Up Tourism Despite Pandemic.” Voice of America. June 25, 2020, sec. COVID-19 Pandemic. https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/tanzania-opening-tourism-despite-pandemic. [3]Leach, Melissa, Hayley MacGregor, Ian Scoones, and Annie Wilkinson. “Post-Pandemic Transformations: How and Why COVID-19 Requires Us to Rethink Development.” World Development 138 (2021): 1-11

Road impacts on the demography and movement of animal populations; optimising study designs and understanding the long-term consequences

Given the extent of the global road network, roads are considered one of the most pressing contemporary conservation issues. However, explicit understanding about how roads affect population dynamics, and so how to mitigate these effects, is limited. This thesis aimed to identify the optimal study designs for assessing population-level impacts of roads as well as to understand both animal survival and movements near roads. The west European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), a priority species for conservation in the UK, is used as a case study. Between May 2020 and November 2021, vertebrate road mortality was recorded using repeat, standardised road surveys in Nottinghamshire, UK, and analysed using novel equations, Generalised Linear Models (GLM), and Generalised Additive Models (GAM). Along the road survey route, four sites were repeatedly studied using spotlight surveys to quantify hedgehog population dynamics. Simultaneously, GPS-tracking of 127 hedgehogs across the Nottinghamshire sites and seven additional UK-wide sites took place. Road avoidance behaviour was analysed using GLMs and the ‘true’ risk of road mortality was analysed using a Resource Selection Function. Average carcass persistence rates ranged between 0.69 and 6.00 days (average 3.10 days ±4.61 SD) and were driven by body mass and road type. Road mortality patterns tracked life history events and were predicted by a combination of road design, urbanity, and traffic volume. With greater densities, survival probabilities and reproductive rates, more urbanised local hedgehog populations appeared to compensate for road mortality. Eighty-four percent (n = 107) of hedgehogs exhibited significant road avoidance behaviour and road crossings showed variation by sex, road type, time of night, and season. Traffic volume and vehicle speed, especially on the outskirts of residential areas, were key components of the ‘true’ risk of road mortality, whilst intermediate roads produced the greatest annual road mortality probability. This thesis provides researchers with robust methodology for the accurate interpretation of road mortality rates and their population-level impacts. In addition, this is the first study to establish local population differences in road mortality impacts in hedgehogs and that road mitigation should consider the potential presence of meta-population dynamics. The GPS data suggest that hedgehogs may be perceiving the risks and rewards of traversing road networks and adjusting their behaviour accordingly. Combining insight from the population and movement ecology, as adopted in this thesis, can ease the constraints surrounding decision-making for conservation planning and road mitigation

Managing the Pandemic in the South Asian (SAARC) Countries

This paper explores the coronavirus pandemic response from a South Asian perspective. When their case numbers were still relatively low, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries adopted lockdowns at the same time or before India did. On 24 March 2020, when there were just two confirmed cases, Nepal went into lockdown, and Sri Lanka locked down on 22 March, when there were 78 cases. India locked down the day after Nepal, with all countries imposing some form of restrictions on people’s movement. This paper draws its data from the first year of the pandemic that loomed in the SAARC nations. The regional cooperation provided by SAARC has allowed the sharing of resources and a strengthening of the region’s self-reliance. Notably, the commitment made by India to ensure its neighbours are supplied with vaccines, many of these donated. The eight-member SAARC states are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. This paper draws on the knowledge and perceptions of academics and social workers in the SAARC countries. It provides insight into the responses, impacts, vulnerabilities, and challenges faced by the region and in each specific country since the beginning of COVID-19. This paper also offers a discussion on vaccines, PPE, as well as the role of cooperation across the region. The relationship between India and the SAARC countries and its ‘neighbourhood first’ policy are also discussed