Lockdowns as a natural experiment: Human presence, not buildings, drives mammal avoidance behaviour

Urban and rural infrastructures with their human inhabitants are usually difficult to distinguish as separate entities, as they almost always coexist. Consequently, it remains unclear whether wildlife avoids buildings due to the physical barriers themselves or because of the people who live and move around them. To address this question, the authors utilised GPS-tracking data from 586 individuals of 23 terrestrial mammal species at 35 sites across the globe. The featured study treats the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 as a natural experiment that temporarily restricted human movement without changing the built-up environment. The authors show that avoidance of buildings weakened during lockdowns, but only in landscapes with a high Human Footprint Index; in more remote, natural areas, avoidance barely changed at all. This context-dependent response suggests that it is the presence and movement of people, not infrastructure on its own, that shapes how mammals use human-modified landscapes, a finding with direct relevance for forecasting wildlife responses to future changes in human activity.