Male lion in the middle of herds of oryx and impalas in Etosha National Park, NamibiaCredit: assalve/ E+/ Getty Images
Lions, often considered Africa's apex predator and ‘king of beasts’ may have to give up the throne when it comes to inspiring fear among other animals. A new study, published in Current Biology has reported that humans instill a level of fear in animals that significantly surpasses that of lions and other natural predators.
The study focused on animals at waterholes in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park and their reaction to different noises at close proximity. The sounds that were compared were: lions snarling and growling; women and men speaking calmly in local languages; hunting sounds; or control noises from non-predators, all broadcast at the same volume (60dB) from about 10 metres away.
“The speaker is activated when the animal walks by. It then hears that sound for 10 seconds so we can see what the animal was doing just before it heard the sound, what it does when it's hearing the sound and also what it does after the sound stops,” lead author Liana Zanette, who studies the ecology of fear at Western University, Ontario, Canada, said.
The findings revealed that animals, such as giraffes, leopards, zebras, warthogs and hyenas, were twice as likely to flee, and they abandoned waterholes 40% faster in response to human stimuli than they did when encountering lions, or even hunting sounds such as gunshots and barking dogs.
"Our results greatly strengthen the growing experimental evidence that wildlife worldwide fear the human ‘super predator’ far more than other predators,” the researchers stated.
The findings are expected to pose challenges for conservation efforts, especially in tourism-dependent regions in South Africa.
