When nature needs tourism

• News & Highlights

Tourism often harms the environment, but not always. The COVID-19 pandemic shows that in some places nature actually benefits from tourists.

Summer 2020 was not a good one for common murres on the Swedish island of Stora Karlso in the Baltic Sea. The small black and white sea birds had significantly fewer babies. In fact, their breeding performance dropped by more than a fifth.

And it was all because lockdown kept tourists away.

The 2.5-kilometer (1.6 miles) island is usually the most visited seabird colony in the Baltic. When Stora Karlsö is full of day trippers, sea eagles usually give the spot a wide berth. But last summer, the birds of prey had no such crowds to contend with. While they don't prey directly on the common murre, their presence startled the breeding animals, causing eggs to roll down the cliffs or leaving them vulnerable to being eaten by gulls and crows.

Stora Karlso wasn't the only place to report unexpected wildlife problems. The drop in tourism in Thailand and India meant that with no grub left behind by visitors, highly aggressive groups of monkeys were left to fight over dwindling food supplies.