Did the Shutdown Revitalize Wildlife?

By Terry L. Maple, Ph.D. Social media have generated dozens of stories and images to illustrate how the cessation of world commerce has improved the planet for wildlife. Devoid of tourists, swans have been photographed in the unoccupied canals of Venice; feral pigs have fearlessly entered the edges of our cities; and Chinese media claimed that elephants visited a village in Yunnan to drink corn wine and pass out among the astonished citizenry. Pundits seemed to cheer the recovery of wildlife that prospered from the pandemic while humanity suffered. However, this turned out to be fake news, staged photos taken out of context, and outright lies, as the pandemic has been hard on wildlife too. What do we know and what does it mean for the future of wildlife? One indicator of the wider effect of the economic shutdown is illegal poaching. Poaching has dramatically increased during the pandemic because tourism has declined precipitously. Without paying customers and little revenue to distribute to the people who work in the safari industry, hunger is driving poaching and the appeal of bushmeat. Poaching of wildlife has spiked throughout Asia and Africa. Without the economic benefits of ecotourism, there is no good reason for local people to protect wildlife resources as a broader conservation ethic has not yet taken hold in many range countries. For example, in China, the rare pangolin, a scaly mammal that is the likely intermediate host for Corona virus, has been butchered in traditional wet markets and consumed as a delicacy despite its endangered status. Only recently has the Chinese government provided Class 1 protection to prohibit nearly all domestic trade and use of the animals. Pangolin scales can no longer be listed as a medicinal in Chinese pharmacies. China has been tardy in removing domestic dogs and cats from the dinner menu but officials have concluded that dogs and cats should be regarded as pets and removed from the pantry throughout China. The culture of consumption in China continues to facilitate illegal trade and traffic in wildlife products. The scope of the pandemic has made us all feel helpless. People desperately want to do something to change the narrative and tweeting good news is one way to feel better about the crisis. Conservation depends on strong local economies and generous giving. Without sufficient cash flow, wildlife venues are failing and some of them may never return. Let’s hope that governments begin to provide financial aid to the travel industry so private companies can restore their valuable services as quickly as possible. Depleted populations can recover as we know from experiments with marine sanctuaries; fishing is actually improved as the protected species spill out to the legal fishing spots. Time out does work, but the current pandemic has encouraged exploitation of wildlife populations. Local people are invading protected areas en masse to kill and consume species that have enjoyed protection for decades. Some wayward pundits are seeing an opportunity in the pandemic to promote a future shutdown to prevent climate change. Without commerce, bankrupt villages, towns, and cities will become increasingly unruly. The result would be devastating to the natural world. As we have learned in America and elsewhere, angry mobs of anarchists do no good and solve no social problems. The pandemic- induced shutdown is a model for draconian climate change policies, but it does not bode well for the planet if we should adopt this strategy. In our book Contract with the Earth (Johns Hopkins, 2007), Newt Gingrich and I observed that Americans would willingly change their behavior to benefit the earth when they instituted legislation to restrict and ban smoking, and enthusiastically embraced recycling. Similarly, we are learning to live with face coverings, hand-washing, social distancing, and the demand to spend more time at home. Our current struggle to strike a balance between a reopened economy and cautious human interaction is generating widespread anxiety. We must figure out the best policies to restore our collective prosperity while dealing with the danger of this virus. It will take time to assess the effects of the world economic downturn, but serious scientific studies are underway. In Washington state, for example, conservation biologists are examining killer whale excrement to see if calmer seas have calmed the resident whales. It is already clear that the downturn in marine commerce has made the ocean less dangerous for migrating whales and other species that must negotiate the debris and the traffic. We should be able to clean up the ocean without resorting to extreme measures that further damage the world economy. The entire world depends on American wisdom and creativity; not just for the sake of humanity but for every species that shares the earth with us. Our recent experience with COVID-19 clearly demonstrates that we are one earth, indivisible and interconnected for better or for worse. More from Terry L. Maple: Newt's Latest Podcasts: Order Newt's Latest Book:

Did the Shutdown Revitalize Wildlife?

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