麻豆社

When the world went quiet during lockdown, did it have any effect on our wildlife and environment? Social media was awash with footage of deer and foxes roaming through empty city centres, while images of crystal clear rivers and lakes were shared with the hashtag #wearethevirus. Across the globe, heavily polluted cities suddenly had cleaner air and their inhabitants could see the horizon for the first time in years, birdsong seemed louder and richer as traffic disappeared from our roads and there was an increase in sightings of basking sharks, killer whales and dolphins around our own coastline. But how much of this is really attributable to lockdown? Conor McKay speaks to marine biologists, ornithologists, seismologists and climate experts to find out how valuable lockdown has been for their research, and asks whether a period of a few months, when the world became just a little quieter, could offer a glimpse of a brighter future.