With much of humanity stuck at home, the 50th anniversary of Earth Dayarrived on Wednesday without many in-person celebrations but with a silver lining of sorts: The rewilding of some urban areas on a suddenly quieter, less crowded planet.
It has taken many forms. A herd of shaggy goats was spotted running down desolate streets in Wales, and monkeys were seen taking over a plaza in Thailand. Coyotes have ventured deeper into San Francisco, and deer have wandered freely around Nara, Japan.
Captive animals have benefited, too. Penguins have been allowed to roam the exhibits at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. And pandas at a Hong Kong zoo finally managed to mate after 13 years — perhaps thanks to a little privacy.
But the environmental benefits of the crisis are only temporary, the United Nations has warned. And climate change and other ways we disrupt biodiversity, like industrial-scale livestock production, can increase the transmission of “zoonotic” diseases — the ones that move from animals to humans, like Covid-19.
Bad news for felines: Two domestic cats in New York State have tested positive for the coronavirus, the first pets found to be infected in the U.S.
And India’s 50 wild tiger reserves are on high alert after a tiger with a mysterious respiratory illness died this month. Around the same time, a tiger at the Bronx Zoo became the first confirmed case in a big cat.
