The Ugly Truth Behind Animals Taking Over Cities While Humans Are In Lockdown

You might have seen pictures of peacocks and most recently, flamingos taking over cities when India enters the lengthy mandatory lockdown to curb the spread of CO.VID-19.

Not just in India, other countries are seeing the same phenomenon with animals coming out of their hiding places when humans retreat to their homes. What we have are dear in Japan, goats in the UK, and wild boar in Spain.

In the last few weeks, feel-good coverage of animals running wild in cities was rampant on the Internet. Some say this is a good sign of natural healing, others just think it is cute or hilarious when they see so many animals in towns for the first time in their life.

However, the truth is not that simple nor positive. For the species that have grown too dependent on humans to feed them, the lockdown is a piece of bad news as now, there is no one there to feed them anymore.

For example, the deer in Japan are usually fed by tourists to Nara but ever since the outbreak, the lack of food from travelers has forced them to venture deeper to humans’ areas to find something to eat.

In France, pigeons are also fed by locals and tourists. And now when the social distancing order is in effect, they have no one there to feed them anymore. The same is true for monkeys in Thailand and seagulls in some port cities.

According to Menno Schilthuizen, professor and evolutionary biologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, animals constantly monitoring us and where we live, waiting for a chance to take over once we are out of sight. Before the outbreak, excessive human presence might prevent them from doing so; but now, as we are indoors, they immediately take up where we left off.

Professor Schilthuizen focuses on how animals living in cities evolve and whether the process is different from that of their counterparts in nature.

He admitted that this outbreak had given researchers like him a unique opportunity for their study. However, he warned that whatever the effect, goof or bad will be reversed once the outbreak was over and we resumed with our normal activities.

Some of the most fearsome pandemics, including Ebola, HIV, and SARS, are from animals and then transmitted to humans. CO.VID-19 is just the same. It originates from bats, jumps to pangolins, and then infects humans.

This has made experts believe that the more we shrink wild animals’ habitats, the higher the risk of another pandemic.

Many people regard our current state as the rehearsal for how post-apocalyptic life is going to be in the near future if we fail to address climate issues right now.

Before another virus finds the chance to infect humans and cause another outbreak, humans have already had their hands full with catastrophic weather events, the backlashes of humans’ unsustainable activities.

It is unrealistic thinking that when we are at homes, nature just magically heals itself and wipe out all of the devastating effects we have imposed on it in the last few decades and then we can forget about climate change or animal extinction.

So the next time you see any feel-good videos or pictures of animals seemingly enjoying themselves in cities, feel free to admire the beauty but remember, behind that mesmerizing scene is the risk of another pandemic.

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