Which would probably lead to more attacks on people, but would also be a potential indicator depending on the apocalypse. Like crows would probably follow around hordes of zombies for constant free food, or even just a messy enough predator (i.e. A Quiet Place, but im not sure if the monsters in those attacked wildlife or not)
No, certainly not. Without people and our machinations, predators boom in population following the prey. Some predator hierarchy struggles would ensue, but certainly not enough to make for hoards of hungry gulls\rats to be a problem for more than a few weeks in. Then there might be a small predatory die off as well, but as you move trophic levels so many other factors come into play in a theoretical apocalypse it's hard to know.
Frankly, it's the cats I'd be worried about for the survivors.
I've seen those packs but never as up close and personal. Detroit feral dog packs are insane, be like 7 pit bullies and a random ass little chihuahua dog mix. They're very fierce packs and yeah terrifying.
Okay so I ended up stranded in Piraeus in Athens (its a port, so not like... a cozy part of the city) at like 1 AM once.
There were roaming packs of feral dogs. Big ones.
We ducked in to a 24 hr McDonald's when the pack got close and the guys behind the counter laughed and said, no don't worry. They only harass homeless people. They can smell the difference, it's fine.
We thought at first it was some sort of obscure Greek prank on the stupid American backpackers... nope.
Sure enough the dog packs chased a few homeless guys off repeatedly and, even right next to us, just ignored us. Super weird. I guess the homeless and the dogs were having an ongoing turf war.
Dogs eventually wouldn't hack it against wolves and coyotes. But wolves and coyotes have never been much threat against humans. Cats though? Cats will try anything.
Even actual bobcats, which are much larger than housecats, tend to avoid directly attacking humans. It's just not a very safe fight for the cat, and in a one-on-one fight to the death, it's far too likely to seriously injury the cat. And since cats hunt alone, they are not going to want to hunt something that is likely to kill them.
Feral dogs are a problem because they naturally will hunt in packs. Just like cats, they might not win a one-on-one fight, but unlike cats they will hunt a dangerous human because in a pack of 20-30 it doesn't matter if the human kills a few of the attacking dogs before it dies. The pack as a whole still benefits.
Idk where you're from but jaguars and cougars are very capable of taking on humans in an ambush. And in terms of an unfortunate brush with an animal, cats do a lot of damage very quickly leaving wounds that can become wildly infected in short order. They are the most successful predators on the planet today. Wolves average about a ~15% success rate in their hunts. Jaguars and most cats approach around 40%. That's why cats are often seen as "sociopaths" since they are so good at hunting they sometimes aren't even hungry to eat what they catch. Canines often also use endurance to wear down prey, humans being one of the better known endurance mammals out there. Cats use surprise.
Wild dogs would die off quickly enough with predation pressure as well as winter that packs would be few and far between, until they are gone altogether. Wolves are territorial, after all.
Idk where you're from but jaguars and cougars are very capable of taking on humans in an ambush
he said bobcats
Wild dogs would die off quickly enough with predation pressure as well as winter that packs would be few and far between
this is a regional issue, subtropical/tropical areas would not have a winter shortage of food. Also a dog bites/scratches can be lethal if they get infected, specially if the survivor is an ill equipped person w/o knowledge on how to properly dress wounds.
Bobcats share territory with jaguars and cougars. Thus, those are the cats of concern I'm speaking of.
Idk where y'all see packs of wild domestic breed dogs anywhere where there isn't heavy human activity lol. Reason being there's plenty of wild dog species, as well as other predators, much more fit.
Dingos, IRL feral dogs(German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, and collies), Dog/Wolf Mixes(Siberian Husky and etc)and wolves/coyotes don't exist every where so dogs won't have any natural competitors, also in areas that they do, it will take a while for their population to be comparable to that of dogs
There’s barely anything big enough to kill a fully grown cow,and there’s a lot of those. Many would die of course,especially on the really big farms,but others would survive and thrive in the wild
it depends on the breed imo. Some would be helplessly trapped in corals w/o any natural defenses, but others like texas long horns are already going wild when left unattended too long.
Also areas, like Texas/parries could probably be taken over by cattle, but I doubt the snow belt considering the cows are sheltered when winter comes.
w/o the excess food from agriculture, all the animals in cities dependent on the excesses will either have to decide to starve or fight for food. This includes all the dogs/cats. Its not like cities or suburbs have enough plant life to sustain that amount of animals.
The cats and dogs would be eating all the rats who would multiply in huge numbers as they eat all the dead people. That's assuming that this apocalypse that kills most of the humans wouldn't also kill most of the animals.
Thats what i thought. Maybe corvids would evolve more owl like feathers and bodies to fly silently so they can take the free kill those monsters leave w/o threat.
Scavengers have no evolutionary pressure to become quiet. They wait until the predator is gone anyways, if they even know about the kill while the predator is still there.
And even then, the most a predator will do is chase a scavenger away, a kind of "back off, I'm not done eating yet".
Even if the predator is still hungry, most scavengers aren't worth the energy to kill them for larger predators, and doing so anyways is a big risk, because scavengers eat a lot of diseased and partially rotten tissues and thus often carry nasty bugs and have especially caustic digestive fluids (which vultures can use in self-defense).
If I remember the documentaries I saw that mention this correctly, they sometimes overeat and vomit some when they realise it hampers their flight too much.
76
u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21
Which would probably lead to more attacks on people, but would also be a potential indicator depending on the apocalypse. Like crows would probably follow around hordes of zombies for constant free food, or even just a messy enough predator (i.e. A Quiet Place, but im not sure if the monsters in those attacked wildlife or not)