Wildlife Is Thriving In Closed US National Parks
Rare sightings skyrocket as the likes of pronghorn antelopes are spotted in Death Valley for the first time, while the population of black bears quadruples in Yosemite.
Wildlife experts are reporting that wildlife is thriving in closed US national parks, with the lack of human visitors allowing animals to roam more freely than ever before.
Rare and unprecedented sightings of wild animals that usually stay far away are happening more frequently. Pronghorn antelopes have been spotted in an visitor-less Death Valley national park - “something we haven’t seen in our lifetimes”, Kati Schmidt, a spokesperson for the National Parks Conservation Association told The Guardian.
“We’ve known they’re in some of the higher elevation areas of Death Valley but as far as we’re aware they’ve never been documented this low in the park, near park headquarters”.
Other rare sightings include a huge increase in black bears in national parks across the country. Yosemite national park in particular reports that “the bear population has quadrupled,” worker Dane Peterson told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not like they usually aren’t here […] It’s that they usually hang back at the edges or move in the shadows.”
Yosemite received over 4 million visitors last year, most of whom visit by car, so the lockdown has provided an unprecedented opportunity for animals to flourish. As parks begin to reopen, including Colorado’s Rocky Mountain and Wyoming’s Yellowstone, some animals, particularly young animals, may take a while to adjust to a sudden influx of human visitors again.
“Individuals who have lived in the national park area will likely readjust pretty quickly to the return of recreators after quarantine,” Lindsay Rosa, a conservation scientist with Defenders of Wildlife, told The Guardian. “But newcomers, particularly juveniles born this spring, may take a bit longer to learn since they haven’t yet had the opportunity to encounter many humans.”
Rosa gives a particular mention to amphibians, which will be starting their migration to breeding grounds. “[For amphibians], roads remain a particularly fatal obstacle”.
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