My latest piece for BBC Wildlife was published in the May issue on pg. 82 and online “What is the anthropause?”
And so, as usual, I thought I would take you through my mad scientist brain, in how the idea for this article came about.
I was cuddling my dog Woods and started wondering what he’d actually do if I wasn’t around. Could a giant pitbull-malinois who acts like a little lapdog baby survive out there, or is he too domesticated to remember how?
Then I started thinking about what kind of conditions we’d even have to be living in for that to be the question.
Apocalyptic stories ran through my head like The Last of Us, Elysium, or The Hunger Games.
Then, I remembered the last time the streets were truly empty…the 2020 pandemic.
I remembered the reports of wild animals roaming cities, birds nesting where they hadn’t in decades, fish populations returning to polluted canals, dolphins showing up in places they shouldn’t be. A phenomenon we hadn’t seen this century. I wondered what actually happened there, and what came after.
So, I pitched my editor at BBC Wildlife and they were intrigued.
That question became this scientific investigation. You can read a screenshot below.
UPDATE: Three more BBC pieces coming this year — two more Q&As and a main feature. Watch the bylines!
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.