Seabirds raise fewer chicks as the pandemic keeps tourists away
The birds were behaving strangely. Normally, the summer months would be a productive breeding season for the seabirds known as guillemots or murres living on the island of Stora Karlsö in the Baltic Sea. But, of course, 2020 wasn’t a normal year.
Lockdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic dramatically reduced human activity around the world. And, in many cases, this “anthropause” has benefited animal species .
The guillemots don’t seem to be one of them.
Jonas Hentati-Sundberg at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and his colleagues say …