Scarier than lions: how fear of ‘super predator’ humans is shaping the animal kingdom
Science Weekly
The Guardian
4.2 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2023
⏱️ 16 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Guardian. Get your morning mojo going with Mullah like Greek style. |
| 0:17.0 | Now with a new recipe, with Vitamin B6 and Vitamin D. Let's have it! |
| 0:25.0 | Mull-a-light, get the good going. You've probably heard the saying. They're more scared of you than you are of them. |
| 0:40.0 | Perhaps when encountering a nasty looking spider or I don't know a particularly surly kitten |
| 0:47.2 | but a new study has shown is true and not just for tiny arachnids and unfriendly pets, but for the wild beasts of the savanna, |
| 0:55.8 | from hyenas and zebra to leopards and rhinos. |
| 0:59.7 | It turns out we terrify the rest of the animal kingdom and fear itself has an impact. |
| 1:07.2 | It could mean abandoned food, water or even fewer offspring. |
| 1:19.0 | So, are we shaping the planet through fear alone? And if we are, what does that mean for tourism and conservation? |
| 1:24.0 | I'm the Guardian Science Editor Ian Sample |
| 1:26.7 | and this is Science Weekly. We will hear lions snarling and growling and then we'll look at the system and |
| 1:40.0 | we'll say wow the system isn't actually on. |
| 1:45.0 | And so we run just like all the other animals do, |
| 1:49.0 | because, you know, I mean, I'm not going to risk it. |
| 1:52.0 | I'm in the car and I'm waiting for the |
| 1:53.9 | lines to go. That's Leanna Zanette, a professor at the University of |
| 1:59.6 | Western Ontario in Canada. She researches the ecology of fear, how being scared of predators impacts |
| 2:06.6 | prey, and she's taken to studying one of the most ferocious predators of all. |
| 2:11.5 | Us. Most recently, she's explored how animals in a South African |
| 2:15.7 | Savannah reacted to hearing human voices. So I wondered what got her looking at |
| 2:21.5 | this? You know working in the Ecology of Fear as we have been doing for some decades now, |
| 2:27.0 | we ourselves have always thought about predators in terms of the classic food chain with the large carnivore predator on top and then that eats the herbivore like the lion eats the zebra and then the zebra eats their food further down the food |
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