How Human Traffic - on Foot or in Vehicles - Affects Wildlife Movements on Landscapes Shared by Humans Throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 caused widespread fear and forced many countries to enact policies to reduce the spread of the virus. Most of these policies restricted peoples’ movements to the confinements of their neighborhood, creating an “Anthropause” whereby humans altered their regular behaviors to adhere to the new rules. I conducted an observational study and analyzed how prevalent the effects of the “Anthropause” were throughout high human density suburban parks and neighborhoods across Connecticut and New Jersey. Throughout a three-month period, I used camera traps to analyze variations in human activity and how wildlife populations responded to these changes. My study noted large amounts of human activity during the lockdown phase. This revealed that humans valued their own personal freedoms over government mandates and thus did not abide by the rules because they used the parks more than instructed. As the lockdown restrictions eased, the majority of parks saw gradual reductions in the abundance of people. Yet these variations in human activities did not directly affect the behaviors of suburban wildlife, as the animal populations either stayed constant or followed the same declining patterns as people. Overall, wildlife seemed to be more influenced by seasonality effects (with warmer temperatures reducing their prevalence) than the actual presence of humans. Specifically, an increase in wildlife nocturnal activities later in the study illustrated a shift in behavior to effectively maximize their energy usage. The study further demonstrated that the wildlife alongside residential areas was not affected by the effects of the “Anthropause”.