WHETHER it’s goats in Llandudno or pelicans waddling up the Mall, there’s no doubt wildlife is enjoying the deserted streets, parks, towns and cities.

Wild animals have no respect for human convention. They do not follow any highway code and will take advantage of the lack of traffic and human beings to explore and search for food, or perhaps just to have a look at places they’ve never been to before.

The sight of the goats of Llandudno climbing garden walls, eating the hedges and wandering the streets was on the face of it very amusing. But it shows that nature will prevail whatever disasters befall our planet.

As we stay indoors, we are dropping less litter and food waste. The natural scavengers who feed off discarded bits of sandwich or, indeed the gulls that actively and aggressively steal food from our hands as we casually dine out, are being driven to enter areas they would normally avoid in search of food.

But life on Earth is hardy. It exists in places that not too long ago we would have dismissed as impossible.

Deep sea underwater volcanic vents, where black fumeroles emit hot sulphurous gas from cracks in the ocean floor sustains life. It’s an example of how life can derive energy from not the sun, but the Earth’s interior heat.

Strange animals inhabit areas where human life, indeed nearly all other life, simply could not exist. We have examples of bacteria that literally live inside rocks and other life forms that can withstand the driest conditions, the hottest and the coldest extremes on Earth. Endoliths (which translates from the original Greek as “within rocks”) are bacteria that live up to two miles or more, deep inside rock formations in the Earth’s crust. There is little to no water, but they survive on iron, potassium and sulphur. They are protected from ultra-violet radiation from the sun.

Other organisms can also survive high doses of radiation, but it’s another type of bacteria that currently holds the record. Deinococcus radiodurans can withstand doses of radiation 150 times higher than one that would kill a human being.

In one of the driest regions of Earth in caves in Chile, a fungus grows on the thin strands of spider webs. As the very small amount of dew and condensed water from the atmosphere forms, the fungus takes it in and survives. It needs next to no water to live, less than scientists thought would be sustainable.

But what about surface disasters? Ecologists are always ready to study how life re-inhabits areas destroyed by natural events from tsunamis to volcanic eruptions. When Mount St Helen’s in the USA erupted in 1980 hot ash obliterated the surrounding landscape. It looked more like the dust covered surface of the moon than the lush green tree covered paradise that preceded it. Although vast numbers of animals and plants were instantly killed, seeds, fungi, spores buried beneath the ash and other flora and fauna just at the edge of the affected zone soon began to recolonise the area. A mere 40 years on and superficially, with its lush green vegetation, there is little evidence that a disastrous volcanic eruption had taken place.

Even in areas where you would expect life to struggle it always manages to find a way. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster released clouds of radiation that reached the sheep farms of Wales. Close to the nuclear power plant people were evacuated and many deaths were recorded. But the area is not, and never was, sterile. The area surrounding Chernobyl hosts many species such as lynx, bears, deer, wild dogs and cats, foxes, badgers and so forth. They don’t glow in the dark. They are almost indistinguishable from their counterparts in non-radiated areas.

The plants did suffer, for example, the leaves on many of the trees turned a rust colour and the numbers of insects has dropped considerably. What we are seeing during lockdown is how, if humans suddenly disappeared, animal life would quickly recolonise our towns and cities. On my daily(ish) exercise walks the lack of noise pollution from cars and lorries has meant that I’ve heard birdsong much more clearly. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at recognising the different songs or indeed the different species of birds. We do seem to have had more visitors to our garden, not just next door’s cat.

The small mammals are getting more and more bold. Cats seem to be wandering further afield. Foxes are also getting cheekier basking on our decking and surveying our neighbours’ gardens from the roof of our shed. Life, literally, goes on.