How Is Wildlife Affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic? Lockdown Effect on the Road Mortality of Hedgehogs

Rafał Łopucki; Ignacy Kitowski; Magdalena Perlińska-Teresiak; Daniel Klich

doi:10.3390/ani11030868

How Is Wildlife Affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic? Lockdown Effect on the Road Mortality of Hedgehogs

Animals (Basel). 2021 Mar 18;11(3):868. doi: 10.3390/ani11030868.

Authors

Rafał Łopucki¹, Ignacy Kitowski², Magdalena Perlińska-Teresiak³, Daniel Klich³

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Konstantynów 1J, 20-708 Lublin, Poland.
² State School of Higher Education in Chełm, Pocztowa 54, 22-100 Chełm, Poland.
³ Department of Animal Genetics and Conservation, Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW, Ciszewskiego 8, 02-786 Warsaw, Poland.

Abstract

Globally, wildlife is affected by unprecedented changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, the lockdown effect on the traffic-related mortality in hedgehogs in an urban area was studied. Comparing the pre-pandemic (2018 and 2019) and pandemic (2020) years, we showed that hedgehog roadkill levels during the lockdown period were over 50% lower (which means a decrease greater than the decrease in road traffic in the same period measured by the number of accidents or the average number of vehicles per day). Based on literature data, we showed that this may mean at least tens of thousands of hedgehogs have survived on a national scale. We report the need to start intensive research on the possible demographic and genetic effects of this unique phenomenon. We also ask how stable the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic will be on wildlife and whether the lockdown (which is an anthropause) may reverse the negative trends in the decline in the number of wild species, including hedgehogs.

Keywords: Erinaceus; anthropause; coronavirus; population; road traffic; roadkill.