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New studies show animals lose fear of predators when in contact with humans
New research has revealed animals lose their fear of predators when they come into contact with humans through domestication, captivity or urbanisation.
A team of researchers from the Institute of Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation and Conservation (MARBEC), discovered contact with humans leads to a rapid loss of anti-predator traits in animals. Levels of fear were also found to decrease over generations of exposure to humans.
The research suggests the reasons for this are two-fold. Firstly, reduced pressure from natural selection due to living in a safer environment lowers the animals levels of fear.
Secondly, artificial selection by humans means the most docile animals are bred for domestication over generations.
The effects of domestication on animals
Anti-predator traits
The team of researchers analysed 173 peer-reviewed studies that investigated anti-predator traits in more than 100 species of animal. The species analysed were domesticated, captive, and/or urbanised mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and molluscs.
The results showed animals began to lose their anti-predator traits almost immediately after contact with humans, suggesting a large behavioural flexibility in most animals. After many generations of contact, this change may also become genetic.
Benjamin Geffroy, of MARBEC, led the research. He said: While its well known being protected by humans decreases anti-predator capacities in animals, we didnt know how fast this occurs and to what extent this is comparable between contexts.
The study also found domesticated animals lost their anti-predator traits three times faster than urbanised animals. This means pet cats and dogs lose their fear much quicker than urban animals such as city foxes and birds. Captivity resulted in the slowest loss of fear overall, although loss of fear did occur.
Serious harm or death
Knowing our pets feel safe because of us is undoubtedly heart-warming. However, the loss of fear of predators can be dangerous in certain circumstances. In a situation where a domesticated or urbanised animal encounters a predator, having no anti-predator instincts could lead to serious harm or death.
In addition, this research has important implications for conservation and captive breed programmes. When a captive animal is released back into the wild, its vital that animal retains a sufficient amount of its anti-predator traits to survive. As this study suggests, many captive animals may struggle if they return to the wild.
As Dr Geffroy notes, theres much more work to be done to understand the complex relationship between humans and animals.
He said: We believe they should be systematically investigated to draw a global pattern of what is happening at the individual level.
We need more data to understand whether this also occurs with the mere presence of tourists.
