The lion has long been regarded as the world’s most fearsome terrestrial carnivore, but the “king of beasts” has been toppled by humans, new research shows.
Elephants, rhinos and giraffes are all now more afraid of people than other apex predators, according to a scientific paper that supports the idea that humans are the world’s “super predator”.
Wild animals are twice as likely to run away, and abandon waterholes 40% faster when they hear the sound of people talking, according to researchers working in South Africa’s Greater Kruger national park, home to one of the largest remaining lion populations.
Running away or abandoning the waterhole was a response seen in 95% of species, which included giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, kudu, warthog and impala. “Fear of humans significantly exceeded that of lions throughout the savanna mammal community,” according to the paper, published in Current Biology.
The sounds played were the voices of men and women speaking calmly in local languages. Lead researcher Prof Liana Zanette, from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said she was surprised by the magnitude of the response from wildlife, as well as the number of species affected.
“Lions should be the scariest thing out there – but humans were much scarier … It shows we really are terrifying to animals,” Zanette said. She described the findings as “amazing, but depressing too”.
Fear itself can have enormous effects on animal populations: fleeing a perceived threat often comes at the expense of eating and staying in good condition. “Running away from the waterhole means they will have to find another place to drink – that is a cost,” said Zanette.
Surveys from Australia, North America, Europe and Asia have shown humans kill prey at higher rates than any other apex predator – partly due to the adoption of guns, and hunting with dogs – which is why they have gained the title of “super predator”. Research from other parts of the world has shown mountain lions, deer, kangaroos, wallabies and wild boar all fear humans more than other apex predators.
This human-induced “landscape of fear” will have cascading effects down the food chain, right down to rodents and plants, as it changes the way animals move through landscapes. It is likely to have “considerable ecological impacts”, researchers said.
“If the fear of humans is so pervasive, and happens to all animals out there on our planet, then it really adds a new dimension to the worldwide environmental impacts that humans might be having,” said Zanette.
Wildlife researcher Dr Hugh Webster, who did not work on the study, said the research indicated that “human impacts on animal behaviour are even more wide-reaching than we thought. Perhaps the key point is that we need to identify the most disturbance-sensitive species and engineer protections for them that allow freedom from this pervasive fear.”
To conduct the study, researchers used hidden camera-speaker systems at waterholes that were triggered when an animal passed within 10 metres. Waterholes were chosen as the location because this is where lions – and hunters – tend to kill prey. The researchers filmed the response of the animal to the sound of either humans speaking or lions snarling, growling or making hunting noises, and used non-threatening bird calls as the control sound.
The study highlights how tourism-dependent conservation might affect wildlife populations. Even when people are just talking in the proximity of wild animals, they might be having previously unrecognised effects. This poses a particular dilemma in African protected areas, because although tourism may cause disturbance, many protected areas rely on wildlife tourism for funding, the paper said.
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