Is rare fish sighting in Biscayne Bay a sign nature is rebounding? It’s an Earth Day question

From his 44th-floor condo overlooking Biscayne Bay, Scott Ziegler spotted two strange-looking fish swimming together. They were light-brown, had long bills bristling with teeth and calmly meandered right by the seawall near Margaret Pace Park.

Ziegler took out his phone to film them but didn’t think much of it — he often saw manatees, turtles and other marine animals from his perch. What he didn’t know then was that he was witnessing something extraordinary: a pair of endangered smalltooth sawfish. Nobody really knows how many are left in the wild and sightings in busy Biscayne Bay are extremely rare.

“When I found out what they were, I couldn’t believe my luck,” Ziegler said.

That it happened right off Edgewater, not far from downtown Miami, is only one South Florida example of a global silver-lining narrative that has flooded social media for weeks and has particular resonance today, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day: That nature, given a break from relentless human activity and pollution by coronavirus shutdowns and social distancing, is flourishing.

The evidence is mostly anecdotal but many scientists agree there may be short-term benefits for some wildlife and ecosystems.

In South Florida, for example, the lockdown on marinas has drastically reduced boat traffic along the coast and in the region’s many waterways — making species like sawfish, a shark-like creature that is actually a ray, easier to see and perhaps drawing them into new areas.

“It’s very likely that a combination of improved water clarity and reduced disturbance made it possible for the fish to swim so close to shore and allowed them to be more visible,” said Neil Hammerschlag, a shark scientist and associate professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. “I was thrilled to see the images. It shows that conservation is having an impact, otherwise they wouldn’t be using the bay at all.”

In a world temporarily shut down, there have been dozens of reports of wildlife behaving in surprising ways, providing anecdotal evidence for environmental and climate activists who argue that if humanity gives nature a hand, it can rebound and prosper.

There were lions taking a nap on a South African road inside a national park. Long-haired mountain goats overrunning a town in Wales and happily grazing on the church’s garden. A herd of 50 Elephants crossing a major road in Thailand. And pandas doing it at a zoo in Hong Kong after a 13-year sexless marriage, taking advantage of some much-needed privacy.

But there was also plenty of collective wishful thinking and tall tales: swans and dolphins were suddenly spotted in Venice as its busy canals were deserted and waters turned clear during quarantine. It wasn’t true: swans were already living in the canals of Burano, a nearby island, and the images of dolphins were from Sardinia, according to National Geographic.

And who wouldn’t want to believe a story about an adorable group of elephants drinking corn wine and falling asleep in a deserted tea field in Yunnan, China? It was also fake; the photos were first reported by a Chinese news site last year, in a story about a conservation program for Asian elephants.

The environmental extremism also drew online backlash: At some point in early April, the meme “the Earth is healing, we are the virus” made the rounds, mocking people’s exaggerated optimism.

“Because of less pollution, I can now see Australia from Kathmandu!,” one tweet said.

The counter-memes included one showing the Loch Ness monster swimming in lakes in India and another with rainbow dolphins in the Hudson River.

But for many, wildlife sightings, especially in heavily urbanized places like Venice, are uplifting images and underline the impacts that humans have on the surrounding landscape. Many scientists and environmentalists hope the pandemic will become a turning point, highlighting how habitat protection and a switch to cleaner energy, which produces less pollution, could reduce climate change and improve air and water quality.

No less than Pope Francis chimed in on the observations, suggesting earlier this month that the novel coronavirus may be one of nature’s responses to how society has treated the Earth and to how people are ignoring the consequences of climate change.

But there are also likely deeper human reasons the healing earth narrative is comforting, said John Sterman, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management: grief for what we have done to nature and to ourselves. People hope that, no matter what we’ve done, nature is powerful enough to rise above it, he said.

“The pandemic has caused so much anxiety and death and pain, that we are grieving even without knowing it,” Sterman said. And at some level, people also equate a healthy environment with a prosperous economy, he said.

“This crisis has brought these issues to the fore in a way that hasn’t happened before and it affects everybody,“ he added.

The lockdowns also have more people looking at nature more closely, helped by less noise and less pollution, even in their own neighborhoods.

That’s why people in social media are talking about seeing more monarch and zebra longwing butterflies around Miami and hearing birds more often during these days of isolation. In most cases, it’s just a matter of perception.

The butterflies may be more visible because an active breeding cycle, with some rain helping chrysalis emerge after a dry spell, has probably led to more of them fluttering around, but it’s nothing exceptional about it, said Martin Feather, manager of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s Wings of the Tropics butterfly exhibit.

“There’s also the chance people are taking notice of their natural environment more often now that they are spending more time at home instead of the office,” Feather said.

While only time and longer-term research will tell, there are some iconic Florida species that may benefit from the reduced pressure on their habitats.

The Florida panther, for instance, may be getting a little help from the drastic reduction in road traffic. Vehicle collisions is the number one cause of mortality of this endangered animal. There are only an estimated 120 to 230 adult panthers alive, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Yet they keep getting hit by cars: 10 so far this year, with the last death recorded on March 8.

“It would make sense that there would be fewer panthers hit by cars because of Florida’s stay-at-home orders, but there hasn’t been enough time to make a statement based on statistics,” said Elizabeth Fleming of Defenders of Wildlife.

For others, there could be some negative effects: Without human monitoring and conservation efforts along Florida coastlines, some shorebird colonies are unmarked and unprotected. Beach birds like the black skimmer and the least tern are listed as threatened species in Florida. They lay eggs right on the sand, and are easy targets for predators, said Marianne Korosy, director of bird conservation at Audubon Florida.

In South Florida, the recent sightings of the two sawfish will likely give new impetus to habitat conservation efforts and policies to improve water quality. Scientists have been calling for more protections for Biscayne Bay and all its biodiversity; the presence of the rare fish using that habitat is evidence that restoration works.

“It’s a good time to stop and reflect on how we as humans can learn to better share habitats with these incredible creatures,” Hammerschlag said.