Recording people’s conversations normally caused animals to flee.
Lions must have been very terrifying to animals living in a South African national park.
Because there lives the largest herd of wild lions in the world. They hunt and kill zebras, giraffes, antelopes and buffalo.
On a global scale, humans are an even deadlier predator. We kill most animals.
But have the animals in the national park noticed this? That humans are the most dangerous of all?
A group of researchers wanted to find out.
In a place where many different animals come to drink water, researchers installed a camera and a box with sound recordings. When the animals approached the box, it made three types of sounds:
People who speak perfectly normally. Lions that snarl and growl. And hunting sounds with dogs barking and gunshots.
Everyone ran away from the people talking
The cameras and speakers remained in place for several months. In the end, the researchers examined 15,000 recordings. In total, 19 different animal species were captured by the cameras.
The recordings showed that the animals fled the watering area twice as often when they heard human noises as when they heard lions.
All kinds of animals have fled: zebras, giraffes, leopards, warthogs, elephants and rhinos. Predators also fled from human voices.
Animals were also more frightened by people speaking in calm voices than by the sounds of gunshots and dogs barking.
We humans have a huge impact on the environment. We are changing the climate, destroying animal habitats and exterminating species, the researchers write.
– For animals, just hearing that we are nearby is a strong signal of danger. They are afraid of humans, much more than any other predator, explains Canadian researcher Liana Y. Zanette, who participated in the study.
But which animals are the most dangerous for us humans?
The mosquito is the most dangerous in the world
The mosquito is the one that kills the most people. Every year, 600,000 people die from malaria, a disease contracted by mosquitoes, according to the World Health Organization.
Humans are also dangerous to humans. We kill each other for money, power and politics. Every year, half a million people are killed by others. Additionally, people are killed in war. It varies from year to year, but in 2017, 90,000 people were killed because of the war.
Snakes are dangerous to humans. In total, 100,000 people die each year from snake bites.
Dogs can transmit rabies to humans. Every year, 59,000 people die from this disease.
Then come the earth and the insects which can transmit fatal diseases to us. Intestinal worms kill many people.
Large predators, like crocodiles, lions, bears, wolves and sharks, don’t kill many people.
The most dangerous in Norway
In Norway we don’t have mosquitoes with malaria or dogs with rabies. We also have few murders compared to many other countries.
We only have one venomous snake, but it’s been a long time since anyone died from a viper bite in this country.
It has been 200 years since a human was killed by a wolf and 100 years since a fatal attack by a bear. There are many polar bears on Svalbard and six people have been killed there in the last fifty years.
The wasp is probably the most dangerous for us in Norway. Not because it is toxic, but because some people are very allergic to wasp stings. Every year, one or two people die from allergic shock following a wasp sting.
