The Super Predator: How humans became the animal kingdom’s most feared hunters
Human beings have been termed “super predators,” surpassing other famous predators in the number of prey they kill. This has led to animals fearing us. Consistent with humanity’s unique lethality, a growing number of experiments have demonstrated that fear of humans far exceeds that of the non-human apex predator in the system. In Africa, 95 percent of carnivore and ungulate species (e.g., giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, rhinos, and elephants) in the Greater Kruger National Park ran more or faster on hearing humans compared with hearing lions. A primitive fear that afflicts all animals when they see a human. Humans might be slower and weaker creatures compared to bears and lions, but to these animals, we look monstrous…
COUNTER-PUNCH: Hunting is considered critical to human evolution by many researchers who believe that several characteristics that distinguish humans from our closest living relatives, the apes, may have partly resulted from our adaptation to hunting, including our large brain size. Over time, however, the need to hunt for survival has been replaced by greed, leading to the exploitation of natural resources, which is destroying the environment and causing the extinction of thousands of species…
When a shark, a tiger, a boa constrictor, or even the rusty-spotted cat of South Asia kills another animal, its primary aim is survival. As carnivores, these animals must eat meat, and therefore, they must kill. But humans go beyond the necessary… But humans go beyond the necessary. In our years of remodeling landscapes and industrializing the wilderness, we have pushed animals toward extinction… Taxonomically, birds were the most predated group, with 46 percent mainly being used as pets or for other “recreational pursuits.”
Meanwhile, “in the terrestrial realm, use as pets is almost twice as common (74 percent) as food use (39 percent),” according to a 2023 study. Sport hunting and other forms of activities (i.e., for trophies) accounted for 8 percent of the use of exploited terrestrial species… Due to humanity’s alarming exploitation of 14,663 species, we are driving 39 percent of these species toward extinction…
Human beings have been termed “super predators,” surpassing other famous predators in the number of prey they kill. This has led to animals fearing us. “Consistent with humanity’s unique lethality, a growing number of playback experiments have demonstrated that fear of humans far exceeds that of the non-human apex predator in the system.
In Africa, 95 percent of carnivore and ungulate species (e.g., giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, rhinos, and elephants) in the Greater Kruger National Park ran more or faster on hearing humans compared with hearing lions,” stated the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. An atavistic fear also afflicts animals when they see a human. We might be slower and weaker creatures compared to bears and lions, but to these animals, we look monstrous…
In the animal kingdom, humans now occupy a unique role, surpassing all other predators in lethality and reshaping the natural order through unchecked consumption and industrial-scale exploitation. Our presence instills a pervasive fear across ecosystems, altering animal behavior and disrupting millennia-old predator-prey dynamics. Yet this super predator status comes with unprecedented responsibility.
Unlike other apex predators, humans possess the awareness, technology, and moral capacity to recognize the consequences of our actions and to mitigate the harm we inflict. The question before us is whether we will continue to exploit the web of life for short-term gain or harness our intelligence and ingenuity to protect it—ensuring that future generations inherit a planet where humans are not feared as destroyers, but remembered as stewards of the living world. JOHN DIVINAGRACIA
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