While there is no question that humans stand alone at the top of the food chain, a new study has tried to examine just how dominant mankind has been in the Animal Kingdom.
Published in the journal Science, the new study detailed how humans hunt various types of animals at a much higher rate than they hunt each other.
According to BBC News, the researchers found humans hunt large carnivorous animals like bears and wolves nine times more than they hunt each other. With fish, the difference between hunting and self-predation was 14 times.
"Our wickedly efficient killing technology, global economic systems and resource management that prioritize short-term benefits to humanity have given rise to the human super predator," study lead author Chris Darimont, a professor of geography at the University of Victoria, said in a press release. "Our impacts are as extreme as our behavior and the planet bears the burden of our predatory dominance."
The researchers also pointed out how humans have a major advantage in hunting, given how far weaponry has come. For example, animals risk a great deal of bodily harm when they hunt because they do not have access to such an advantageous tool like a gun, or even a blade.
"We exist at vastly higher densities than natural predators," Chris Carbone, an expert on predator-prey relationships at the Zoological Society of London, who was no involved in the study, told BBC News. "It might be that 100 zebras could support a lion, but in the case of humans we can outnumber our prey in many instances, and that throws the system. So even if we didn't have the efficient hunting technology, we'd still have problems with sustainability."
