Eco-tourism could endanger wild animals
Encountering humans reduces their fear of anatural predators
Animals such as mammals, birds and reptiles lose their fear of predators after they start encountering humans, experts say. Biologists analysed nearly 200 scientific studies to investigate changes in different 'anti-predator' traits – which can help an animal outwit a predator and escape with their lives – following human contact. Contact with humans – such as in zoos and tourist enclosures – gradually wears away the natural 'anti-predator' instincts in multiple species, they found.
In the wild, these animals are put in great danger when they then have to escape from predators, the international team of scientists claim. The issue also affects animals in the wild that live near cities and new urban developments, which are being lured by scraps and tamed by humans.
'While it is well known that the fact of being protected by humans decreases anti-predator capacities in animals, we did not know how fast this occurs and to what extent this is comparable between contexts,' said Benjamin Geffroy from the Institute of Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation and Conservation in France. 'We need more data to understand whether this occurs also with the mere presence of tourists.'
Examples of anti- predator techniques can vary between species – from changing colour as a method of camouflage, to living underground, only coming out of their habitats at night, playing dead or fleeing.
The researchers analysed the results of 173 peer-reviewed studies investigating anti-predator traits in 102 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and molluscs.
The team looked at the change in anti-predator responses during contact with humans under three different contexts – urbanisation, captivity and domestication. As an example, an animal in the context of urbanisation would be a fox in a back garden or a pigeon in Trafalgar Square.