Animals vs. Man - who wins?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Let’s say every animal on the face of the planet decides to wage war against mankind. Domesticated pets turn on their owners, birds swoop out of the sky to attack people on sight, and farm animals refuse to be tamed. It’s brains and technology against numbers. Who wins, the animals or people?

We will assume that during the war, all countries are unified. There are no major conflicts or dissent amongst people. Also, no one cares about the impact on the environment, they just care about winning the battle. There is no surrendering. In order to win, one side must destroy 75% of the other side’s population.

2

This is more of an IMHO question than a Great Debate.

[ /Moderator Mode ]

3

I bet the insects could do us in, even if all the other critters fought on our side.

4

I would be more worried about virii and bacteria–assuming a concentrated and organized effort.

5

I’m the one supposed to be asking crazy questions like this. I say the animals win because we couldn’t destroy 75 per cent of all animals without destroying ourselves that is if your counting insects. I could see all the red ants in the world easily killing off children and older people, I don’t think it’s the lions and tigers we would have to worry about it would be the insects.

6

Cats. They are just plain evil. The evilness, nay, eeevillllnnnesssss, is a surefire death knoll for humans.

(Now watch the cat-people come forth. Cat-people are some of the most sensitive life forms ever.)

7

Do we assume that the animals are as intelligent as people? Or are they just infected by an “I hate humans” virus?

If the former, the animals win no question. All that needs to happen is for the fish to commit mass suicide to deprive humans of food sources, and for the cattle to trample wheat fields, and mass starvation and riots break out.

If they’re just infected with the I-Hate-Humans virus, then it’s a closer contest. But I’m still giving it to the insects.

Daniel

8

A-ni-mals! A-ni-mals!

9

Sooo… Let’s assume animals have memories. They know that my hairless pink goodness is no match against their claws. Thus, I will get my hands on light armor, cover it with dog training armor, and cover that with straight razor blades, or some such. I live in the city, so hopefully, the wolves coming to the cities to feast on the people their will be delayed, thanks to the shootuing range in the county I go to sometimes. Untill they get here, all I have to contend with are Cats, dogs, Flying Squerrls, and the dangerous man eating cow. To stock up on ammo, and food, I simply wear the armor, and I figure I am safe. I bet I’ll be surprised.

10

Which side is Batman on?

11

Insects carry the day.
We’d have no hope.

12

Cows With Guns

http://www.theflasharchive.com/f/f-50.htm

13

I have yet to see any animal win against a human(s) with a flamethrower(s)…I say make a circle of 12 humans, backs facing outwards with 8 more inside the circle shooting upwards with their flames taking out the flying creatures above. Millions of these human flamethrowing cells should reek havoc upon the animal kingdom…and a good BBQ will ensue shortly thereafter. Fire is our ally, not theirs.

14

Oops, backs should be facing inwards…otherwise…uh…we’re toast. :smack:

15

Divide and conquer…maybe in 5 or 6 mile squares. Don’t give them a chance to congregate for a massive assault.

Carpet bombing jungles would also speed things up. Forest fires would definitely drive the animals to open kill zones where we would have the advantage.
Nuclear detonation in the oceans would help…or depth charges. Battleships with large nets and depth charges…yeah. Don’t really want to swim with the fishes if you know what I mean.

Get the kiddies to spray soapy solution on the rose bushes to get rid of the aphids. Every human has got to contribute.

Fire up that DDT manufacturing plant too.

We do have to find a way to sterilize the insects if we’re gonna win in the long run though…that’s the major hurdle.

16

A few disjointed thouths, not really an essay:

  1. The humans could win. But then what would we eat?

  2. The animals could get a pretty good jump on us before we collectively figured out what’s going on. But once we put our organizational ability to the task, they’re toast.

  3. In areas with lots of animals and few humans, jungles, mountains, tribal villages, etc., the few humans could be overwhelmed with 100% losses.

But in more urbanized areas, there simply arent’ enough animals, including insects and bacteria, to do the job. There certainly aren’t that many serious predator animals (tigers, bears, cougars, sharks, wolverines??) near significant concentrations of humans.
For example, my suburban area is overrun with cute little bunnies and squirrels, birds nesting in the trees, the occasional raccoon, not to mention a dog or cat in most houses. But that’s it. No tigers or bears.

If all people tried to do was chase off the attacking critters, the critters could mass at house after house & kill us all one house at a time.

But if I kill the dog, cat, 3 squirrels, 2 bunnies and 5 pairs of birds that live on my property, and all my neighbors do the same, the area is de-animalled. I can take out a dozen small critters no sweat. So can most able-bodied adults once they set their mind to it. Monty Python notwithstanding, there’s only so much damage a rabbit can do to human.
4) I don’t see bacteria as able to participate. They’re either benign, or they’re already trying to kill us and our immune system is fighting them off now.
5) Insects are vast in number, but dispersed. Most can’t travel far. At my house I need to defend against the ants that live within, at most, a few hundred yards of my place, not every ant in the county. As with 3) above, if the animals mass at a point they can win local battles, but by definition, massing also means there are other areas where they’re absent and where we’re not only safe, but our numbers are strong.

A massed enemy brings combat power to bear, but also makes for a high-value target. Even basic human weapons like rifles and bug spray are overkill against most animals. Ever seen what a 30-06 does to a squiirel? If they mass, they simply improve the exchange ratio for us. Spraying a herd of attacking bunnies with machine gun fire is gonna kill more bunnies than spraying the same area when there are only a dozen of the fuzzy marauders on the attack.
6) If most urbanized/suburbanized humans do the horror-flick thing and simply cower in the basement screaming until the ants devour them, well the humans are doomed. the critters will go house to house and that’ll be that.

The rural folks will put up a good fight but they can be overwhelmed by numbers. The rancher with 1000 cattle, 3 men and 5 rifles is probably gonna be overrun before they knew what hit them. Ditto the farmer with no livestock, 600 acres and a few thousand rodents and birds on his land versus him, his wife, their kids and their 1 farmhand.

Conversely, if most people get to work doing what needs to be done, the attack can be comprehensively defeated in hours or at most 2 days. Winning must begin in the cities and spread out from there. Sounds like fun folks; let’s get to work …

17

First of all, I think we have to agree that bacteria are not “animals.” Animals, to me, means birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids, crustaceans, mollusks, and mammals.

Forget hand to hand combat. Obviously, some people will be screwed - if you live with a Doberman, sayonara, pal - but most people will be able to hole up. I have three cats who can scratch you but they each weigh twelve pounds. I can toss them in the basement or just kill them with ease. Most people do not have dangerous animals around the house.

The problem we face in The Great Beast War is the breakdown of industrialized society. Holing up in the house is one thing, but we’ve got to organize ourselves, and that’s going to be hideously difficult. If you think urban areas are safe from animals, you don’t know anything about urban areas. Urban areas are FULL of animals; dogs, cats, reptiles fr all sorts, raccoons, squirrels, and birds of every shape, size and description. There’s horses in most urban areas too. A shocking number of animals actually thrive in cities. If you live in any major North American city, there’s probably a thousand or more raccoons living within a thousand yards of your house, plus the squirrels, rats, mice, groundhogs, and skunks. Birds of prey are moving back into urban areas in increasing numbers, plus songbirds, crows, and gulls. And you’ve got insects, insects, insects. Most insects are just gross and can’t really hurt you, but some are extremely dangerous, such as fire ants, bees, wasps, and the more poisonous arachnids, such as black widows, brown recluses, and scorpions. Keeping such animals out of your house is hard even when they’re not at war with us.

In tropical areas… well, it gets really bad. The number of dangerous bugs goes up exponentially. Some areas will also be extremely bad for poisonous reptiles; in Australia, Africa, southern Asia and parts of North and South America you face assault from cobras, vipers, mambas, rattlers, etc.

So every time you go outside you’re going to be attacked. It would be difficult to adequately protect yourself against all possible threats; a dog protection suit will not work against a bear, and a rifle will kill a bear but not a swarm of bees. What will work against a fer-de-lance will not work against a rabid raccoon. Within cities your major problem will be stinging insects, I would think, and the few larger mammals around, like big dogs. Outside of cities, however, you’re facing larger, stronger animals all over the place, plus all the city problems. Farms will be lost within minutes as the animals slay their horrified keepers. Lines of communication will be severed and our food supply would vanish.

As for going into the water, fuckin’ forget it.

So the real problem would be organizing an effective resistance. Mass panic would set in and initial casualties would be staggering. People would be split up and want to hide in their homes. It would take a while to gather up enough people to fight back and all the while food stocks would be dwindling.

I think we’d be screwed.

18

Soylent green, presumably.

19

Beans and rice will provide protein. But then we would destroy the ozone as a result.

20

Does this war include the microscopic mites that live in every human’s eyelashes and hair follicles? I don’t know how much damage they could do, but if they have the ability to drill into our brains and eyeballs, we’d be toast within a day.