![]() Mammals are mostly taken to become people food, while birds, reptiles, and amphibians are mainly trapped to live in captivity as pets. For terrestrial animals, however, it depends on what kind of animal is being targeted. When it comes to marine and freshwater species, our main take is for human consumption. There is some nuance to this broad trend. “That’s where things have gone off the rails,” he says. The “ta-da result,” he says, “is that we remove, or essentially prey on, more species of animals for non-food reasons than for food reasons.” And the biggest non-food use, the scientists found, is as pets and pet food. Yet according to Chris Darimont, a conservation scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and a coauthor of the study, the biggest shock isn’t how many species we affect but why we take them. According to the researchers’ calculations, humans take 469 species across an equivalent geographical range. Not a picky eater, this owl will hunt up to 379 different species. The Eurasian eagle owl, for instance, is one of the largest and most widely distributed owls in the world. The predators that give us the biggest run for our money, says Rob Cooke, an ecological modeler at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and a coauthor of the study, are owls, which hunt a notably diverse array of prey. That’s about one-third of all vertebrate species on Earth, and it’s a breadth that’s up to 300 times more than the next top predator in any ecosystem. Analyzing data compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, researchers have now found that humans kill, collect, or otherwise use about 15,000 vertebrate species. ![]() But biomass is only a sliver of the total picture, and researchers wanted a fuller understanding of how human predatory behavior affects biodiversity. Previously, scientists have tallied how much more biomass humans take out of the wild than other predators. The research showcases just how broad our collective influence on wild animals is. Now, for the first time, researchers have attempted to capture the full picture of how we use wild vertebrates, including how many, and for what purposes. From agricultural feed to medicine to the pet trade, modern society exploits wild animals in a way that surpasses even the most voracious, unfussy wild predator. Yet our reliance on wild animals goes far beyond just feeding ourselves. Birds, bugs, whales, snails, we’ll eat them all. Some people may be picky eaters, but as a species we are not. J| 750 words, about 3 minutes Share this article Photo by dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo Humans’ Fondness for the Odd and Rare Makes Us Particularly Overwhelming Predators Humans kill, collect, or otherwise use more wild species than any predator on Earth. Surprisingly, most of this is for non-food reasons. Wolves typically hunt in packs, but have relatively low kill rates with reported results between 5-28%.Humans hunt, kill, or capture a massive number of species. Lions kill about 1 in 4 prey they pursue. These cats look like they want to kill something! And they score highly on the predator success scale at a 35% success rate. how domestic cats are ruthless killers and responsible for the deaths of billions of birds. Here’s a site that discusses what those differences are.ĭomestic Cats: I’ve previously posted an IFOD on. They look almost identical to Cheetahs but there are differences. Leopards kill about 40% of prey they pursue. Peregrine Falcons have a nearly 50% success rate. And Cute! African Black-Footed CatĬheetahs kill at about a 60% rate also (one study reported 58%) And they are tiny! Only about 8-10 inches tall. ![]() African Wild DogĪfrican Black-Footed Cats have a 60% success rate. They’re super-fast clocking over 40mph sprints. These dogs differ from domestic dogs in that they only have four toes instead of five. Fortunately, they don’t eat humans! Deadly but beautiful! Here’s the success rates of other animals:Īfrican Wild Dogs have a 80-85% success rate. Researchers think that the Dragonfly is such a successful hunter due to special neurons in its brain and the design of its eyes that allow it to track a moving target and calculate an optimal intersect trajectory. The predator with the highest success rate is the Dragonfly with a shockingly high 95% success rate. While we might think that once a predator sees and pursues prey, that the prey is toast, that’s not the case as predator success rates across the animal kingdom are pretty low, often in the 1-5% range. Predator success rate is the percentage of time a predator catches and kills prey that it stalks. Recently I read in Maria Konnikova’s excellent book The Biggest Bluff about the concept of predator success rate and which predator is the most deadly.
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