The dynamics of the first wave of COVID-19 on environment and wildlife– a boon or a bane?

Abstract

Even though COVID-19 has drastically weighed upon the humankind, still there is a “silver lining” to see in this dark time. Amidst of this pandemic, most of the human activities were restricted to break the chain of infection which resulted the remarkable change in nature. It has been reported that due to halt in air travel, reduction in the use of fossil fuels, way less functioning of vehicles, shutdown of industries has complied the change in air pollution levels and also change in river water quality. Reports also showed the reduction in particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10), greenhouse gases emissions, massive improvement in the Air quality index (AQI), reduction in the NOX and SOX’s level has clearly stipulated that nature has got it’s time to “revive”. Even the global carbon emission has reported to reduced reluctantly which is expected to be the biggest such drop since World War II. Despite conducting water-cleansing projects and spending a lot of money, the situation of the water bodies were far better now during first lockdown. Moreover, migration and breeding of the birds and animals have been reported to be restored to normal pattern due to depletion in man-animal conflict. Apart from the positive, negative impacts on the nature are also being experienced. Our review work is highlighting such impacts witnessed during the first wave of COVID-19, like, the significant improvement in air and water quality, reduction in environmental noise, therefore an in turn cleaner and quieter habitat for the wildlife to mate and also to quench their curiosities by their surprising excursions; but there are also some negative aspects as well, like reduction in recycling and the increase in waste, increased poaching and even lone shuttering of zoo animals.