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Africa’s Animals Fear The Sound Of Humans More Than Lions, Dogs Or Gunshots

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Good to know you're more frightening to most African animals than this guy.

Image credit: e2dan/Shutterstock.com

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Recordings of human voices scare the wildlife of South Africa's Greater Kruger National Park more than lions’ growls or even the sound of gunshots. Even in a national park, we’re probably the bigger threat. After all, lions only kill what they can eat – some humans will slaughter an entire rhinoceros so they can turn its horn into medications that don’t work.<br>The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

In The Book of Merlyn, the children’s author TH White noted that humans are more terrifying to animals than tigers, which he associated with our propensity for war. It’s taken more than 80 years, but we now have scientific confirmation of White’s observation, although the researchers compared us to the “king of beasts” instead.<br>“We usually think about the top of the food chain being large carnivore predators,” said study author Dr Liana Zanette, of Canada’s Western University, in a statement. “But what we're interested in is the unique ecology of humans as predators in the system, because humans are super lethal.”<br>“Normally, if you’re a mammal, you’re not going to die of disease or hunger,” said fellow author Dr Michael Clinchy, which you might suppose is...