Public perception of urban wildlife during a COVID-19 stay-at-home quarantine order in Chicago

Maureen H Murray; Kaylee A Byers; Jacqueline Buckley; Elizabeth W Lehrer; Cria Kay; Mason Fidino; Seth B Magle; Danielle German

doi:10.1007/s11252-022-01284-x

Public perception of urban wildlife during a COVID-19 stay-at-home quarantine order in Chicago

Urban Ecosyst. 2023;26(1):127-140. doi: 10.1007/s11252-022-01284-x. Epub 2022 Sep 30.

Authors

Maureen H Murray¹, Kaylee A Byers^{2

3}, Jacqueline Buckley¹, Elizabeth W Lehrer¹, Cria Kay¹, Mason Fidino¹, Seth B Magle¹, Danielle German⁴

Affiliations

¹ Dept. of Conservation and Science, Urban Wildlife Institute, Lincoln Park Zoo, 2001 N Clark St, 60614 Chicago, IL USA.
² Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Canada.
³ Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, Animal Health Centre, Abbotsford, BC Canada.
⁴ Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD USA.

Abstract

Reduced human activity to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by reports of unusual wildlife sightings in highly developed areas. Such experiences with urban nature may have helped residents cope with the stress of the pandemic and increased public interest in urban wildlife; however, this may depend on the species residents encountered. In this study, we surveyed Chicago, Illinois, USA residents during a stay-at-home order to understand if residents in more affluent or greener neighborhoods saw more wildlife species. We also evaluated whether encounters with pest and non-pest species were associated with residents' values about wildlife. Of 593 responses included in our analyses, respondents in higher-income and greener neighborhoods were more likely to perceive increased wildlife sightings and respondents in higher-income areas reported observing a higher number common birds and mammals. Support for seeing wildlife in residential areas was associated with seeing passerine birds and not seeing rats during the stay-at-home order. Our results suggest that perceived increases in wildlife sightings were common during a stay-at-home order, especially for affluent residents, and that residents' perceptions depended on the species encountered. Understanding how changes in human behavior modifies human-wildlife interactions can help mitigate human-wildlife conflict and foster positive engagement with local wildlife.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11252-022-01284-x.

Keywords: Biodiversity; COVID-19 pandemic; Environmental equity; Human-wildlife interactions; Survey; Wildlife values.

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.