Despite heavy illegal hunting of rhinos, South Africa’s Kruger National Park is still a natural paradise. One of the largest remaining lion populations in Africa lives there. Yet there is something the local animals fear even more than the big cats.
Liana Zanette of Western University in Ontario and her colleagues were able to show that animals react most strongly to human voices and flee in response. For their experiment, the team placed camera traps and loudspeakers at water holes in the national park, which allowed the researchers to influence and record the behavior of a total of 19 mammal species. They played the animals sounds of normal conversations of humans in four South African languages, dogs barking, gunshots and lion sounds.
The study group found that animals were twice as likely to flee and yacated an area faster when they heard human voices than when they heard lions or gunshots. This was true for 95 percent of the animal species observed, including giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, kudu, warthogs, impalas and rhinos. Only elephants were significantly more likely to run from lions than from humans.
The same was true of the time that animals spent at water holes: they usually stayed longer when lion sounds were played to them than when human voices were heard. Wild dogs, leopards and buffalo were the only animals who stayed at water holes longer when they heard humans, and the difference was not statistically significant for these species. “There is a notion that animals get used to humans when they are not being hunted. But we’ve shown that’s not the case,” Clinchy says. “Fear of humans is deeply rooted and common, so we need to seriously address it for conservation reasons.”
The team is now investigating whether its customized sound systems can be used to help endangered species, such as the southern white rhino, away from known poaching(偷猎) areas in South Africa. Initial tests of keeping rhinos away from such areas through the use of human voices have been successful.
【小题1】What can we know about South Africa’s Kruger National Park?| A．Rhinos are effectively protected in the park. |
| B．Lions are the biggest threat for local animals. |
| C．Human voices cause fear in the local wildlife. |
| D．It is a natural paradise without illegal hunting. |
| A．Occupied. | B．Left. | C．Encountered. | D．Filled. |
| A．Elephants are more afraid of humans than lions. |
| B．Giraffes react most strongly to lions or gunshots. |
| C．Rhinos were more likely to run from lions than gunshots |
| D．Wild dogs stayed at water holes longer when hearing humans |
| A．Human Voices: a surprising deep-rooted fear in wildlife |
| B．Lions: the primary source of threat for the local animals |
| C．Lion Sounds: the potential use for wildlife protection |
| D．Humans: the impact on decreasing rhino population |
