The effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on wildlife and wildlife tourism

COVID-19 lock­downs have not only impacted travel & tour­ism, includ­ing wild­life tour­ism, but also wild­life itself. As a research eco­lo­gist, con­ser­va­tion­ist, eco-tour pro­pri­et­or, and chair of Wild­life Tour­ism Aus­tralia, Ronda J Green is inter­ested in all aspects of that. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Dr Green sum­mar­ises the effects coronavir­us lock­downs have had on wild­life and wild­life tour­ism in Aus­tralia and around the world.

This art­icle is based on a present­a­tion I gave in late 2019 dur­ing a webin­ar ses­sion of the “Vital Sites: Jour­ney to Mar­seille” series run by TAPAS (Tour­ism And Pro­tec­ted AreaS), one of the groups with­in the IUCN (Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature). I’m a mem­ber of the Biod­iversity Work­ing Group with­in TAPAS. Through­out much of 2020, I have also been attend­ing fort­nightly nation­al Zoom meet­ings on COVID-19 and anim­al wel­fare, an ini­ti­at­ive that has cul­min­ated in an art­icle by Tilbrook et al (in press) but which mostly involved domest­ic anim­als. Talks by Dav­id New­s­ome and oth­ers dur­ing Wild­life Tour­ism Aus­tralia webinars in June 2020 have addressed wild­life and tour­ism, and I’ve sub­sequently explored recent lit­er­at­ure (aca­dem­ic and oth­er­wise) for reports on actu­al and poten­tial impacts, both pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive, some of which I present here before offer­ing a few sug­ges­tions for tour oper­at­ors and researchers. 

Restrictions on travel is curbing wildlife tourism

Vis­it­a­tion to nation­al parks and oth­er wild­life areas through­out the world has of course sig­ni­fic­antly dimin­ished in 2020 and early 2021 due to COVID-19 lock­downs and bor­der clos­ures. Coun­tries that rely primar­ily on inter­na­tion­al tour­ism for vis­its to nation­al parks – e.g. many Afric­an and south­east Asia coun­tries – are likely to have low vis­it­a­tion rates for a long time to come. 

Aus­tralia has closed its bor­ders to all inter­na­tion­al tour­ists with the excep­tion of some very restric­ted flights from New Zea­l­and. This is likely to last well into 2021. Bor­ders between states con­tin­ue to open and close as the situ­ation changes, as do lock­downs of vari­ous districts.

Even par­tial restric­tions with­in coun­tries can res­ult in few­er domest­ic vis­it­ors to wild­life-view­ing areas. SocialNews.xyz for instance repor­ted on Novem­ber 29, 2020 that in Uttar Pra­desh, India, nor­mally a tour­ist hot­spot at that time of year, COVID-19 restric­tions pre­ven­ted people above the age of 65 and chil­dren below 10 from ven­tur­ing out, thus end­ing plans for many fam­ily excur­sions, which in India often include sev­er­al generations. 

Rutz et al (2020) point out that lock­down does at least allow research­ers to invest­ig­ate the effects of human activ­ity on wild­life by observing what hap­pens when such activ­ity is dra­mat­ic­ally decreased. 

Positive impacts of travel restrictions on wildlife 

There are poten­tial pos­it­ive impacts, including: 

• Less dir­ect dis­turb­ance by human crowds in pop­u­lar tour­ism destinations;
• Very few if any humans in some areas where anim­als have pre­vi­ously been hunted and thus very much on the alert even if only one or two humans are present;
• Less roadkill;
• Less human-induced noise (see Berger‐Tal et al 2019 for some examples of noise effects);
• Less lit­ter­ing and pol­lu­tion (includ­ing green­house gases);
• Less impact on hab­it­ats (tramp­ling, excess­ive fire­wood gath­er­ing, camp­fires get­ting out of con­trol); and
• More oppos­i­tion to wet mar­kets and wild­life trade generally.

Although some reports of increased wild­life in cit­ies since lock­down have since been iden­ti­fied as bogus, there are many genu­ine obser­va­tions and con­sid­er­able report­ing world­wide of the pos­it­ive impacts of a reduc­tion in vis­it­ors to nation­al parks and oth­er wild­life areas. 

In areas that are now quieter, some animals:

• have been seen for the first time in par­tic­u­lar sites (e.g. river otters at a cam­pus in Chile); 
• have exten­ded the hours in which they’re act­ive (e.g. deer that are now act­ive by day in Italy); and 
• are mak­ing more use of roads and road­sides (e.g, wild­life in Kruger Nation­al Park). 

It’s too early to assess long term eco­lo­gic­al effects, but it is plaus­ible that such exten­sions of range could allow more time for for­aging and a great­er choice of for­aging and nest­ing sites.

Rutz et al (2020) offer some examples of cur­rent research, such as wheth­er birds that are known to be adversely affected by human noises are now expand­ing their ranges (Cor­nell Lab of Orni­tho­logy) and wheth­er reef fish are becom­ing bolder (Brown University). 

New­s­ome (2020) sug­gests: “One pos­sib­il­ity is that we could arrive at a dif­fer­ent baseline that reflects degraded wild­life tour­ism con­di­tions. If, in a post COVID-19 world, a new aware­ness of the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of spe­cies and the tour­ism upon which it is depend­ent arises, this could open the door for improved tour­ism management.” 

Negative impacts of travel restrictions on wildlife

Neg­at­ive effects can include: 

• The sud­den ces­sa­tion of the feed­ing of wild­life that have become depend­ent on handouts by tour­ists or operators;
• An increase in poach­ing for bush meat for loc­al consumption;
• An increase in poach­ing for illeg­al traf­fick­ing in wild­life and wild­life parts;
• Few­er people vis­it­ing areas where they might oth­er­wise have res­cued injured or orphaned creatures;
• Less rev­en­ue for con­ser­va­tion man­age­ment of pro­tec­ted areas; and
• People blam­ing and call­ing for remov­al of anim­als such as bats that may be hosts to the vir­us (though if not being har­assed, crowded togeth­er in cap­tiv­ity, or eaten, they are unlikely to infect humans).

There has been some dra­mat­ic video foot­age in Lop­buri, Thai­l­and of mon­keys that are no longer fed by tour­ists scream­ing, chas­ing one anoth­er, and fight­ing over small morsels of food, as well as invad­ing shops and gen­er­ally caus­ing havoc. 

Respons­ible tour­ism oper­a­tions in Aus­tralia have gen­er­ally been care­ful not to provide enough food to cause such depend­ency, although I have seen some less care­ful prac­tice, which can res­ult in over­pop­u­la­tion and increased aggres­sion in pop­u­la­tions of pos­sum at camp­grounds, for example. This may have res­ult in tem­por­ary star­va­tion and added stress dur­ing lockdowns. 

Rhi­nos, ele­phants, tigers, pan­golins and oth­er creatures whose body parts are luc­rat­ive items on the black mar­ket are at increased risk of poach­ing now that there is much less vis­it­a­tion to nation­al parks by tour­ists, tour oper­at­ors, and even rangers and research­ers. Incid­ents have been repor­ted in vari­ous Afric­an and Asi­an coun­tries (e.g. Ghos­al, A. and Casey, M. 2020). 

The impact here in Aus­tralia appears unknown, although there have been recent arrests (e.g. Ley 2020). Wild­life traf­fick­ing from Aus­tralia is a multi-mil­lion dol­lar industry, largely for the illeg­al pet trade (Barry 2011), espe­cially involving par­rots and rep­tiles, and also some mam­mals such as sug­ar gliders. Ech­id­nas have been illeg­ally traded from West Pap­ua (Vince 2019) so there is a poten­tial illeg­al mar­ket for these from Aus­tralia as well. Traf­fick­ing is a prob­lem not only for con­ser­va­tion but also for wel­fare due to meth­ods of cap­ture and trans­port. Anim­als are often drugged and smuggled in very con­fined spaces, res­ult­ing in many deaths en route, con­sid­er­able suf­fer­ing by sur­viv­ors, as well as inap­pro­pri­ate con­di­tions of care at their final destinations. 

Dur­ing a work­shop on wild­life traf­fick­ing by Wild­life Tour­ism Aus­tralia a few years ago we heard dis­turb­ing reports of people hir­ing camper-vans and pay­ing for their hol­i­days in Aus­tralia by col­lect­ing rep­tiles as they travel and selling them to black mar­keters before return­ing their vehicles. At least cur­rent restric­tions on inter­na­tion­al flights are mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to trans­port anim­als out of the coun­try, but it remains pos­sible that traf­fick­ers are col­lect­ing them in pre­par­a­tion for the re-open­ing of borders. 

So what should we do? 

Actions we can take include: 

• Con­tinu­ing research into impacts of lock­down on wild­life, mak­ing res­ults known to con­ser­va­tion man­agers, and/or donat­ing to same (Rutz et al (2020) note that “… addi­tion­al fund­ing is urgently required to sup­port the research … Coordin­ated glob­al wild­life research dur­ing the anthro­pause will make con­tri­bu­tions that go well bey­ond inform­ing con­ser­va­tion sci­ence — it will chal­lenge human­ity to recon­sider our future on Earth.”); 
• Keep­ing respons­ible tour oper­a­tions afloat with innov­at­ive ideas and some fin­an­cial relief (as the Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment has been doing with Job­Keep­er allow­ance [a scheme to help employ­ers main­tain their work­force dur­ing lock­down] as well as sub­sidies to zoos, wild­life parks, and aquaria); 
• Explor­ing ways of run­ning wild­life tours that min­im­ise over-crowding once the restric­tions on inter­na­tion­al flights are lifted;
• Donat­ing to com­munit­ies in devel­op­ing coun­tries who may oth­er­wise need to hunt more wild­life for food dur­ing lock­down (e.g. a Mas­aai friend Paul Kilelu Sadera, who star­ted a Con­servancy in Kenya, has repor­ted that many people in his com­munity are find­ing it hard to feed their fam­il­ies dur­ing lock­down, a situ­ation that is likely to be echoed in many oth­er com­munit­ies through­out the world); and
• Keep­ing an extra vigil­ant lookout for sus­pi­cious activ­it­ies in pro­tec­ted areas and oth­er nat­ive hab­it­ats and report­ing same to author­it­ies, while exer­cising cau­tion. (Rangers have been murdered by poach­ers in oth­er coun­tries, and I’ve spoken to a police warden whose life has been threatened more than once by poach­ers in Aus­tralia. As bor­ders open, sniffer dogs could be employed more widely in air­ports and ship­ping ports for any anim­als con­cealed in the lug­gage or cloth­ing of pas­sen­gers leav­ing the country.)

Many wild­life tour­ism oper­at­ors depend on inter­na­tion­al tour­ism for much of their income. The loss of such vis­it­ors is most acutely felt in many Afric­an, trop­ic­al Asi­an, and Lat­in Amer­ic­an coun­tries, but also affects many Aus­trali­an operators. 

One rem­edy is to explore pos­sib­il­it­ies for attract­ing domest­ic tour­ists, such as: 

• Edu­ca­tion­al groups, espe­cially sec­ond­ary and ter­tiary stu­dents of sci­ence, envir­on­ment, or geography;
• Fam­il­ies (“par­ents: let your kids have fun while learn­ing about our nat­ur­al heritage”);
• Retired couples (“now at last you have time to devel­op inter­est­ing out­door hob­bies or just relax in nature”);
• City-dwell­ers (“escape the crowds, dis­cov­er nature”);
• Cit­izen sci­ence (“have a close-up exper­i­ence of our fauna and flora, learn a lot and do some good”); and
• Con­ser­va­tion volun­teers (ditto).

So, yes, coronavir­us-related lock­downs have cer­tainly caused some ser­i­ous prob­lems for wild­life tour­ism oper­at­ors and wild­life, but they have also presen­ted oppor­tun­it­ies; oppor­tun­it­ies to learn and to devel­op innov­at­ive solu­tions to old and nov­el prob­lems. Indeed I would hope and expect the COVID era to ush­er in bet­ter man­age­ment prac­tices in wild­life tour­ism and in biod­iversity con­ser­va­tion more generally. 

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

References 

Bar, H. (2020), “COVID-19 lock­down: anim­al life, eco­sys­tem and atmo­spher­ic envir­on­ment”, Envir­on­ment, Devel­op­ment and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity  

Barry, C. (2011), “Australia’s wild­life black­mar­ket trade”, Aus­trali­an Geo­graph­ic, (accessed on 25 August 2020) 

Berger-Tal, Wong, B. B. M., Can­dolin, U. .and Barber,j. (2019), “What evid­ence exists on the effects of anthro­po­gen­ic noise on acous­tic com­mu­nic­a­tion in anim­als? A sys­tem­at­ic map pro­tocol”, Envir­on­ment­al Evid­ence 8 (Sup­pl 1):18

Ghos­al, A. and Casey, M. (2020), “Coronavir­us lock­downs increase poach­ing in Asia, Africa”, ABC News (accessed on 25 August 2020) 

Green, R. J., Maleknia, S. D. and Mucci, A., (2017), “Illeg­al Wild­life Traf­fick­ing: Attack­ing on All Fronts”, Wild­life Tour­ism Aus­tralia (accessed on 25 August 2020) 

Ley, S. (2020), “Wild­life smug­gling ring dis­mantled”, Office of the Aus­trali­an Min­is­ter for the Envir­on­ment (accessed on 25 August 2020) 

New­s­ome, D. (2020), “The col­lapse of tour­ism and its impact on wild­life tour­ism des­tin­a­tions”, Journ­al of Tour­ism Futures, DOI 10.1108/JTF-04 – 2020-0053 

Rutz, C., Lor­etto, M‑C., Bates, A. E., Dav­id­son, S. C., Duarte, C. M., Jetz, W., John­son, M., Kato, A., Kays, R., Mueller, T., Primack, R. B., Rop­ert-Coudert, Y., Tuck­er, M. A., Wikel­ski, M. and Cag­nacci, F. (2020), “COVID-19 lock­down allows research­ers to quanti­fy the effects of human activ­ity on wild­life”, Nature eco­logy & evol­u­tion, 4 Septem­ber 2020 pp 1156 – 1159 

Tilbrook, A. J., Baptista, J., Blache, D., Cox-Wit­ton, K., Crad­dock, N., Dalziel, T., De Graaff, N., Fernandes, J., Green, R. J., Jen­kins, H., Kahn, S., Kelly, D., Lauber, M., Malo­ney, S., Peachey, B., Rodger, I., Skuse, J., Walk­er, F. R., Wall, K. and Zito, S. (in press), “Impact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on the wel­fare of anim­als in Aus­tralia”, Fron­ti­ers in Veter­in­ary Sci­ence | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.621843 

Vince, C. L. (2019), “Aus­trali­an Museum Forensics com­bats illeg­al wild­life trade of ech­id­nas”, Aus­trali­an Museum (accessed on 25 August 2020) 

Fea­tured image (top of post): “Where are the pic­nick­ers?” A bold and curi­ous kooka­burra at a pic­nic area in Bris­bane, Aus­tralia. Image by Ronda J Green.

About the author

Ronda J Green, BSc (Hons) PhD, is chair of Wild­life Tour­ism Aus­tralia and an adjunct research fel­low at Grif­fith Uni­ver­sity’s Envir­on­ment­al Futures Research Insti­tute. She also runs Araucaria Eco­tours, her fam­ily busi­ness spe­cial­ising in edu­ca­tion­al wild­life tours (all with advanced eco-certification). 

Dur­ing the COVID lock­downs, Dr Green kept her­self busy writ­ing, renov­at­ing a wild­life eco­logy centre, cre­at­ing nature trails on her prop­erty, and organ­ising the estab­lish­ment of wild­life cor­ridors through the Scen­ic Rim branch of Wild­life Queens­land. Dr Green is also involved with the CRC for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism, is a guest edit­or of the Journ­al of Eco­tour­ism, and has been an invited speak­er on sus­tain­able wild­life tour­ism in Fiji, Indone­sia, Japan, and Malay­sia, as well as Aus­tralia. As a research eco­lo­gist with travel & tour­ism interests, Dr Green has not only stud­ied such top­ics as seed dis­pers­al by fru­gi­vores and the effects of hab­it­at alter­a­tion on wild­life, but also lec­tured on eco­logy and nature tour­ism at sev­er­al uni­ver­sit­ies and authored and edited pub­lic­a­tions on eco­logy and wild­life tourism.