There’s basic human knowledge: we killed off all of our natural predators, so no animal living today naturally sees humans as prey. attacks on humans are either mistakes, response to something the human did, or extreme desperation on the part of the animal(such as starvation). The exception would be animals that have acquired the taste, and those usually get hunted down when the threat is recognized.
I’m not sure I buy this argument. Apparently Tigers have been known to hunt humans even when other prey is available.
"The Bengal tigers of the Sundarbans (translation: ‘beautiful forest’), bordering India and Bangladesh, used to regularly kill fifty or sixty people a year. This was strange given that the tigers were usually in prime condition and had adequate prey available. "
From wiki: Tiger attack - Wikipedia
And what predators would those be, exactly? The same animals that would have been our natural predators in prehistoric Africa and Eurasia are still around: lions, leopards, tigers, hyenas, wolves, and bears. A few species of scimitar cats have gone extinct in Africa, as well as cave bears (but other species of bears are more carnivorous than cave bears were). Australopithecus is known to have been preyed upon by leopards and hyenas, and those certainly haven’t been killed off.
The thing is, today (and probably for thousands of years) there probably aren’t any lions that have never smelled a human. Humans and lions live throughout each others ranges, so there aren’t any entirely naive lions.
Most lions today probably wouldn’t attack humans because of frequent negative interactions with them. Lions outside of protected areas may well have been attacked or harassed by humans as threats to cattle. Even if they haven’t had a negative interaction themselves, they may have been taught to avoid humans by their parents who have.
A completely naive lion encountering a human for the first time might well avoid it, because predators may avoid unfamiliar prey as potentially dangerous. Humans would look sufficiently different from “normal” prey such as antelopes or baboons so that they wouldn’t automatically be recognized as prey. This said, if the lion is hungry and no other game is available, all bets are off.
There are animals who prey on humans, but they are acting as individuals. There is no species that treats humans as their natural prey anymore. Your average lion pride will have little interest in you unless you threaten them inadvertently.
However, the last two posters are correct in pointing out that there are other predators which are more likely to take an opportunistic chomp. Crocs are the worst, actually.
But your statement that “we killed off all our natural predators” still doesn’t hold.
I think it does. There are no species that prey on humans as one of their primary sources of food. Or even their secondary. Just a few individuals who acquire a taste for human flesh.
That’s not because we killed off our natural predators. Your statement isn’t correct.
The fact that they preyed on earlier hominids does not mean they are natural predators of homo sapiens.
It far more likely to be about lack of opportunity. Any lone human at night on foot is fair game. Generally we don’t let ourselves get into that situation, so they never have a chance to eat us… we don’t go into their territory except in a group, in our vehicles and with weapons.
In Tanzania poor farmers sleep in their fields alone at night to protect their crops and are targeted frequently by lions.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/man-eating-lions-attack-by-the-d.html
Same with the Sundarbans, poor fishermen travel alone in dugout canoes and are frequently targeted by swimming Tigers. The reality seems to be, in those few places where there is opportunities to catch us alone, we get eaten, frequently.
Wow. It’s one thing to be poor, it’s another to still be living in a state of nature where you have to worry about predators.
From the same article I posted
The OP’s hypothetical lone human should worry if it’s early evening before moon rise just after the full moon. Thats when most Lion attacks occur in Tanzania, as the Lion’s don’t fare so well in hunting during the full moon when prey can see them so they are hungriest just after the full moon. Almost no attacks occur in the daytime.
The full paper is here: