Impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on house sparrows: Comparative study from an Indian context.

Abstract

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the last couple of years have been drastic in terms of human behavioural patterns. The pandemic has taught us key lessons about crisis, communication and misinformation. People were forced to stay at home for a very long duration because of the strict lockdown measures imposed by governments all over the globe. India was no exception, wherein the Indian government imposed several very strict lockdowns all across the country, which restricted human activities and their social behaviours. However, such restrictions were seen to have a positive impact on environment and ecology. In this paper, we aim to study the changes in House sparrow sightings, as a result of the lockdowns. It is postulated that the lockdowns give rise to increased House sparrow numbers, which we try to argue, using appropriate exploratory analysis and statistical modelling. We apply a specific "zero-inflated Poisson" regression model in this regard.