According to a long piece by Will Stor in the Daily Telegraph (Mad Cows (and Livid Lambs)) lethal attacks on humans by animals are at near-epidemic proportions. . This is a global phenomenon, involving just about every dangerous species. It is widely recognized among animal ethologists (behavior specialists) and even has its own acronym: HAC for Human-Animal Conflict.

Even household pets are involved, as well as elephants, alligators, sharks, foxes, mountain lions, badgers; any animal that can attack is doing so, and predatory species seem to have decided we are their favorite prey. Large-animal stress is at an all-time high, and we are the cause of nearly all of it, directly or otherwise.

It is not clear exactly why this is happening with such inter-species synchronicity, and why now, but the speculative consensus among the specialists is that this is revenge for millennia of gratuitous savagery on our part against these co-participants in our lives. Other scientists dismiss this view as anthropomorphism, which seems reasonable, although there is said to be increasing evidence that animals are much more emotionally complex than we had assumed in our narcissistic view of ourselves as unique summits of creation.

It seems to me that a more plausible explanation for this sudden and unanimous aggressiveness towards humanity can be seen to arise from the incontrovertible fact of our numbers. It is perfectly clear that there are far too many of us for the planet to sustain. There is no clear ethical path to take that would reduce the human population quickly enough to stem the destruction of the planet’s life supports whose consequences we impose on all species. Perhaps this phenomenon marks the beginning of our decline.

Compassion, anyone?