Many countries around the world have locked down their populations to control the spread of COVID-19. During this lockdown, social media has sparked social optimism with vision of wildlife ‘coming back’. These striking images show unexpected sightings of iconic animals, such as pumas, jackals and kangaroos, in usually crowded cities. The reaction by the media and society has been of wonder and hope. This optimism has gone as far as creating the social perception that our activities only have a temporary effect on wildlife and, if we reduce our frenetic pace of economic activity, nature will quickly return. This hopeful response highlights a persistent issue for scientists (Knowlton Reference Knowlton2021). How can scientific information be communicated that allows for optimism, which engages society, whilst being true to the science, which often is grounded in realism that is often pessimistic?

Social media is fast becoming one of the primary ways in which society informs itself about the world (Sterrett et al. Reference Sterrett, Malato, Benz, Kantor, Tompson and Rosenstiel2019). A key problem is that it can also be an unreliable source of information, especially with growing concerns about fake news stories that might distort perceptions of reality (Pennycook & Rand Reference Pennycook and Rand2018). Despite this, the public holds a rather positive view that science is beneficial to society and that scientists in general tend to be trustworthy (Hendriks et al. Reference Hendriks, Kienhues, Bromme and Blöbaum2016), despite activity by certain media sources to erode trust in scientists (Hmielowski et al. Reference Hmielowski, Feldman, Myers, Leiserowitz and Maibach2014).

A key problem for scientific communication is striking the balance between optimism and pessimism. Optimism is a powerful motivator for human progress, but unchecked it can be a self-deceptive state. Yet pessimism disempowers. Both states promote inaction (McAfee et al. Reference McAfee, Doubleday, Geiger and Connell2019). The images of emerging wildlife during the COVID-19 lockdown have inspired societies once in fatigue from persistent pessimism of environmental degradation to overt optimism. The widespread and penetrating influence of humans on ecosystems has been overlooked by the media in favour of optimistic news during lockdown (Davidson Reference Davidson2020, Lawton Reference Lawton2020), ignoring the reality that many ecosystems have diminished past the point of no return (Blomqvist et al. Reference Blomqvist, Brook, Ellis, Kareiva, Nordhaus and Shellenberger2013), even if the lockdown were to be permanent (Myllyvirta Reference Myllyvirta2020, Wang et al. Reference Wang, Chen, Zhu, Wang and Zhang2020).

Perhaps one of the most outstanding examples of environmental improvement has been the recovery of the Antarctic hole in the ozone layer (Solomon et al. Reference Solomon, Ivy, Kinnison, Mills, Neely and Schmidt2016, de Laat et al. Reference de Laat, van Weele and van der2017). Similarly, improving the environment post-COVID-19 requires a sustained effort by citizens and their governments. To avoid denialism and remain grounded in reality, there needs to be understanding that environmental degradation will accelerate as human activities intensify (Cheng et al. Reference Cheng, Abraham, Zhu, Trenberth, Fasullo and Boyer2020). Yet people are showing each other hopeful images of cherished species (Duarte et al. Reference Duarte, Agostí, Barbie, Britten, Castilla, Gattuso and Fulweiler2020), suggesting that there is an opportunity to remind people of the links between healthy ecosystems and their well-being (Corlett et al. Reference Corlett, Primarck, Devictor, Maas, Goswami and Bates2020).

Social media has been a source within which citizens have shown their enjoyment of the environment and their optimism for the future. Citizens have circulated pictures of blue skies from cities usually shrouded in smog (Marlier et al. Reference Marlier, Jina, Kinney and DeFries2016) and satellite image data showing a sharp drop in atmospheric nitrogen dioxide. This is an optimistic contrast with forecasts of over 7 million deaths per year as a result of air pollution (Lelieveld et al. Reference Lelieveld, Evans, Fnais, Gianndaki and Pozzer2015). Whilst air quality is highly sensitive to sudden changes in human activity (Le Quéré et al. Reference Le Quéré, Jackson, Jones, Smith, Abernethy and Andrew2020), a post-COVID-19 world is set for a substantial increase in pollution-driven deaths. The idea that blue skies and returning wildlife can be readily achieved through improved management in a post-COVID-19 world is rather hopeful and could be deceptive. It contrasts with a long history of wholesale species loss (Krumhansl et al. Reference Krumhansl, Okamoto, Rassweiler, Novak, Bolton and Cavanaugh2016, Venter et al. Reference Venter, Sanderson, Magrach, Allan, Beher and Jones2016, Allan et al. Reference Allan, Venter, Maxwell, Bertzky, Jones, Shi and Watson2017, Hughes et al. Reference Hughes, Barnes, Bellwood, Cinner, Cummings and Jackson2017, Cherlet et al. Reference Cherlet, Hutchinson, Reynolds, Hill, Sommer and von Maltitz2018, Evans et al. Reference Evans, Reitsma, Hurlbert and Marra2018, Kroodsma et al. Reference Kroodsma, Mayorga, Hochberg, Miller, Boerder and Ferretti2018, Sommerfeld et al. Reference Sommerfeld, Senf, Buma, D’Amato, Després and Díaz-Hormazábal2018, Bryan-Brown et al. Reference Bryan-Brown, Connolly, Richards, Adame, Friess and Brown2020). The underlying multifaceted substrate of the contradiction between optimism and pessimism in the environmental debate, regardless of the current pandemic, has been studied (e.g., Etner et al. Reference Etner, Jeleva and Jouvet2009, Gifford et al. Reference Gifford, Scannell, Kormos, Smolova, Biel and Boncu2009, Kaida & Kaida Reference Kaida and Kaida2019, Nordgren Reference Nordgren2021). Yet there may be signs that some systems might get a boost from the lockdown (Rutz et al. Reference Rutz, Loretto, Bates, Davidson, Duarte and Jetz2020), which gives some hope that humankind might be able to foster a more inclusive planet of species coexistence.

Scientists are considered to have expertise, integrity and benevolence, such that the public feel assured when they consider both what is said and who said it (Hendriks et al. Reference Hendriks, Kienhues, Bromme and Blöbaum2016). Scientists have the opportunity to be more effective if they strike a balance in communicating knowledge that creates pessimistic and optimistic thinking (McAfee & Connell Reference McAfee and Connell2019). Optimism is at the core of change. Helplessness is at the core of disengagement. And the current enthusiasm for hopeful images of returning species provides an opportunity to strike a balance with solution-focused stories on why these animals have returned and what environmental opportunities they represent. We suggest four steps through which science communicators may leverage these enticing images for greater conservation engagement:

1. (1) Provide a dose of environmental reality to build awareness that cities have displaced beloved wilderness, pushing species out of their historical homelands that are largely forgotten.

2. (2) Generate optimism for nature’s recovery, citing that animals can adapt to a human-dominated world and that co-managing landscapes for humans and wildlife has enormous social and environment benefits.

3. (3) Provide solutions. For people to believe that their actions may make a difference, they need to believe in their actions, and scientists can offer this belief. Scientists will know what engagement is needed, be it conservation volunteering, fundraising or petition-signing. Providing such agency is key to making the message stick (McAfee et al. Reference McAfee, Doubleday, Geiger and Connell2019).

4. (4) Emphasize the current opportunity to turn a negative into a positive by reminding people that the lockdown is a consequence of the mismanagement of natural resources. However, collectively, how ecosystems are managed can be improved to reduce the likelihood of future failures by taking advantage of the widely resonating influence of COVID-19’s ‘Anthropause’ to promote environmental activism and reforms (Young et al. Reference Young, Kadykalo, Beaudoin, Hackenburg and Cooke2021).

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an insight into public psychology, which has been inspired by the news of an apparent ‘recovery’ after years of news of environmental loss. This public switch from environmental pessimism to environmental optimism has been just as inspiring for scientists. In the age of social media, scientists are uniquely positioned to have a positive influence.