Nature has ignored the global lock-down.

[TomY]

In some places like Venice Italy, mother nature appears to be flourishing.

The ancient canals that are normally opaque with silt from constant motorized boat traffic, and dangerously polluted by the effect of millions of daily visitors, have miraculously healed themselves to reveal what has never been seen.

It makes me wonder if there will be silver linings to this pandemic.

Will affects like clear water - where there was only opaque darkness - and blue skies now replacing choking smog over choking urban areas, be forgotten instantly?

 

[kappykaplan]

Saw that clip on the news this morning. They can see the Himalayas from India for the first time in decades.

 

[justsomeguy]

Had a very healthy bobcat amble through my front yard two mornings ago. We've since put out water.

Only the second I've seen in 22 years here in the outskirts of Tucson.

No pictures unfortunately.

 

[rgranger]

Didn't get my phone out early enough to get a good shot, but I saw this coyote pup walking down main street in the middle of the day....

 

[Will Gilmore]

Lost wildlife has been moving back into the NE for the last 50 years.
Moose had all but gone before I was born and since I moved here in the late 70s have become a serious road hazard. Turkeys didn't exist here when we first moved here and now they cause more vehicular damage than any other hazard, according to a friend, who is an insurance agent. Bobcats were a myth, denied by the Fish and Game Dept. Until there were so many posts photographs that they couldn't keep saying there are no bobcats in NH. I understand that having to recognize the existence of an endangered species causes them more work, money and red tape then they are prepared to deal with. Now they are going through the same thing with mountain lions, there are no official acknowledgements of the existence of any cougars in NH, but there are a few of us residents that know that's not true.

Here's to better days ahead

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Justin_NSA]

Cougars are everywhere. They even had a TV series.

 

[kappykaplan]

Cougars are everywhere. They even had a TV series.

 

[rgranger]

I have a bobcat living in the field behind my house. My son has snapped pictures from his deer blind on a few occasions. Didn't realize that was rare.

And we once woke to see an Elk in laying in the backyard near Cherokee NC. Very cool.... and scary.

 

[Justin_NSA]

I have a bobcat living in the field behind my house. My son has snapped pictures from his deer blind on a few occasions. Didn't realize that was rare.

And we once woke to see an Elk in laying in the backyard near Cherokee NC. Very cool.... and scary.

I wonder how my cityfied Norwegian Elkhounds would have reacted to that. They did take down my mother the first ( and only ) time we brought them over.

 

[Benny17441]

Mother Nature is just fighting back, she has some powerful weapons.

 

[Timm R Oday25]

Several years back there were reports of a mountain lion here in south central Wisconsin .The DNR stated there was zero chance of a mountain lion here . Finally there were fur and footprints as proof . The police ended up killing it in a suburb just west of Chicago several months later . Just last summer there were home surveillance videos of both mountain lions and black bears between Milwaukee and Madison . Lot's of food options here . Between when truck stops throw away and folks raising goats ,chickens and thousands of deer in our county alone .

 

[justsomeguy]

Lot's of food options here . Between when truck stops throw away and folks raising goats ,chickens and thousands of deer in our county alone .

And your little dog too!

 

[David in Sandusky]

We lived in Avon, CT in the late 90’s. Turkeys were frequent sightings. A pair of wolf/coyote cross breeds were raising pups in a den by the Farmington River. The Admiral saw one of them napping in the road one morning. Bears would come through and eat the bird feeders like big lollipops. Then one day, when I got to work, several coworkers reported seeing a mountain lion in North Granby during breakfast!

So northwest Connecticut was already pretty wild by that time. Definitely had to tend our dog when she was outside.

 

[jssailem]

It is no surprise. Mountain Lions follow deer they need to eat one per week. They are typical predators. Not too picky. Just run and trigger the flight response. They will chase. Beautiful design to their teeth. Spaced perfectly to separate the spinal cord in a single CHOMP.

We had them naturally running in singles 30 years ago. Then Oregon started to limit the hunting rules. Fewer lion’s are killed. Now the numbers are growing logarithmically. You go out in the woods and you see 3 plus females in a pack. Smart animals. You have deer walking in the area, put out a night camera. Good chance you’ll get a photo of a lion or three roaming.

I have seen a pack of 5 in trail on a ridge above the river in the daytime. A beautiful yet scary experience.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Will affects like clear water - where there was only opaque darkness - and blue skies now replacing choking smog over choking urban areas, be forgotten instantly?

Before-and-after images show how air pollution levels have dropped around the world amid COVID-19 lockdowns
"Striking before-and-after photos released by NASA and other agencies reveal significant reductions in air pollution over different metropolitan areas."

Before and after Covid 19 images taken from NASA satellite of smog in urban areas.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[JamesG161]

I wonder how mother nature rebounds so quickly?

Just asking for a friend...
Jim...

 

[Will Gilmore]

With this kind of recovery, a year of quarantine should show an instant return to pre-Global Warming temperatures and the fall of sea level back to normal as the polar ice caps rebuild themselves. It should only take one Summer of "normal" Summer heat and one Winter of "normal" Winter cold and precipitation to reset it all.

Sort of puts the immediacy of the "Doomsday" preachers to the back of the line. Perhaps, considering human nature, that's not such a good thing.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[TomY]

Canals can recover their clarity in a few days, sky's can clear over cities when traffic stops but unfortunately, climate is slow to react to man made pollution.

It took decades of pollution to build to the present rate of global warming. After the top five warmest years have been recorded on the planet in the last five years, odds are very good that 2020 will be one of the hottest years recorded on earth.

Ocean temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise on our present incline which took decades to steepen; it will take many to reverse, in the best case.

But this moment is an interesting (and rattling) opportunity for man. I don't expect anything dramatic (I can always hope though), but some changes are inevitable.

Working from home and teaching remotely never had the broad traction we're seeing right now. I think that is partly survival and partly generational. Younger people have sidestepped into an online world very easily. If the online world continues to expand as it has during this pandemic, what's stopping that after a vaccine? This has already changed how people organize, especially those that seemed to go seamlessly into that on today's broad scale.

You can't stop global warming in a day but you can clear the skies over a city in just a few days, amazingly.

Anybody interested in making some changes? I bet there will be more than a few that will.

They will open Venice again and the canals will become foul, no doubt, but I don't think that dismal reversal will be as easy as it sounds.

 

[All U Get]

I have a bobcat living in the field behind my house. My son has snapped pictures from his deer blind on a few occasions. Didn't realize that was rare.

And we once woke to see an Elk in laying in the backyard near Cherokee NC. Very cool.... and scary.

We have some cruising friends that live in Cherokee, I’ll ask them about any local Sasquatch.

 

[All U Get]

I wonder how mother nature rebounds so quickly?

Just asking for a friend...
Jim...

She doesn’t wait for a consensus.