Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

milestogo

(16,829 posts)
Thu May 21, 2020, 11:15 AM May 2020

How the Coronavirus Has Changed Animals' Landscape of Fear

A family of lions takes a midday nap in the middle of a road in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. On a nearby golf course, a lioness sips water from a pond while spotted hyenas and African wild dogs play wrestle on the grass. Halfway around the world, a herd of wild goats feasts on a Welsh town’s manicured lawns and hedges. And in California, black bears wander through empty campgrounds. With so many humans cooped up at home during the coronavirus pandemic, these animals and others have been adjusting to a world relatively free of people—and the fear they engender.

Animals that are afraid of predators rely on a sort of mental map of their habitats. They use this map to stick near safer areas and avoid riskier ones, a phenomenon scientists call the “landscape of fear.” All predators influence their prey, but we humans are unique in our extensive ability to shape that landscape because we are such prolific killers—and because we slay animals at all levels of the food web. Human hunters can use extremely efficient lethal technologies. We can collaborate with dogs to pursue prey. And we routinely kill animals without even trying to, such as by hitting them with our cars. So it makes sense that our disappearance from roads, golf courses and other spaces we usually dominate is letting animals relax to a very noticeable extent. “This is certainly all consistent with the landscape of fear,” says Liana Zanette, a biologist at Western University in Ontario who studies the topic. How animals react while humans are holed up—and then again as we emerge—is something of an unintentional experiment that could offer new details about the pervasive ways a wariness of humans shapes the natural world.

The bodies of fearful animals flood with stress hormones, which fuel quick responses. If such creatures see, smell or hear a predator nearby, they might drop whatever they are doing to run away and hide, gear up for a fight or freeze so their movements do not give them away. Even if there is no sign of an immediate threat, anxious animals may search for food less in order to have more time to monitor their surroundings for potential danger.

Whereas some fears are innate—such as humans’ fear of spiders or snakes or a ground squirrel’s fear of foxes—others are learned, either through direct experience or observing others. Most animals have good reason to be terrified of people: a 2015 analysis reported that recreational and commercial hunters fell their “prey” at rates up to 14 times higher than those of nonhuman predators. Human prey even include apex predators such as cougars, which hunters kill around nine times more frequently than nonhuman predators do. Some biologists have begun to call our species “superpredators.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-coronavirus-has-changed-animals-landscape-of-fear/


1 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
How the Coronavirus Has Changed Animals' Landscape of Fear (Original Post) milestogo May 2020 OP
I worry about the feral domestic ducks on the Backseat Driver May 2020 #1

Backseat Driver

(4,333 posts)
1. I worry about the feral domestic ducks on the
Thu May 21, 2020, 12:02 PM
May 2020

community pond at our complex. During stay at home, the street and drives have been extra quiet; the people inside. The ducks have decided to expand their free-range and nesting grounds and have taken to exploring their "neighborhood" across the dedicated road where people regularly speed around the curve and a new bus routing has been created. It's one thing to see wild mallards or geese waddling across the road but not the ten or so domestics who can't fly away to get out of the way or who once nested more safely in the front courts of our townhouses. Over the years we've supplemented their diet with cracked corn and more nutritious treats and enjoyed their antics; they all have names. When loving couples are missing at mealtime, we often think we'll find them squished on the street by the "surprise" car or bus now, not taken on their pond by hawks or overnight predators where once they would not have ventured outside the open-fenced barrier of our complex.

?1566823409

Latest Discussions»Culture Forums»Science»How the Coronavirus Has C...