Animals have the cities all to themselves, and they’re loving it

By Marcus Baram

One of the only bright spots in the past few weeks—amid the mounting death toll and enormous job losses and persistent cloud of gloom that has descended over the world—is seeing the natural world make a bit of a comeback as humans shelter in place to stop the spread of COVID-19. Almost every day, my glum mood is brightened by seeing a tweet with a video of animals roaming cities and suburbs around the world.

(Yes, there have been a few fraudulent images out there, like those photos that purported to show dolphins in the canals of Venice and year-old video of a mama boar roaming an Italian town with her piglets, but plenty of real ones, too)

Even here in New York City, as I took a walk in Prospect Park, the sounds and sensations of spring seemed even more intense. I can’t recall seeing so many happy robins and bluebirds and cardinals and squirrels roaming the woods and the meadows, jauntily parading around the park as if they own it—which they do, for now, as we all remain trapped within our four walls, waiting for this pandemic to end. (If you do a search for animals in Twitter, the first results are “animals taking over” and “animals returning.”)

Here are some of those moments. Maybe they’ll help relieve the despair for a few minutes of your day.

Ducks on the Las Vegas Strip

And geese, too

Here’s a montage of wild animals—goats and monkeys—in cities around the world

Deer in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

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