网帖翻译

Andrew Bywaters
I see a lot of “if you drop an individual human unarmed in the forest, he’s going to die” arguments. That seems to me akin to, “if you forced a polar bear to lose several hundred pounds and pulled out all his teeth, he wouldn’t stand a chance against a walrus,” or “if you broke all four of a tiger’s limbs and tied his mouth shut, he would be defenseless” line of thinking. Humans are apex predators precisely because of our social organization and ability to form and use weapons.
Anyway, birds and mammals “know” that groups of humans are bad news. That is why the avoid coming into contact with us whenever possible, unless they have developed the capacity live in some sort of symbiotic relationship with us.

我看到很多“如果你把一个手无寸铁的人扔在森林里，他就会死”的论调。在我看来，这就像，“如果你强迫一只北极熊减掉几百磅，拔掉他所有的牙齿，他根本没有机会对抗海象，”或“如果你打断一只老虎的四肢，并把它的嘴捆上，它会毫无防备”的思路。
人类之所以是顶级掠食者，正是因为我们的社会组织以及形成和使用武器的能力。
无论如何，鸟类和哺乳动物“知道”人类群体是坏消息。这就是为什么尽可能地避免与我们接触，除非他们已经发展出与我们生活在某种共生关系中的能力。

Tiger Lilly
Andrew, you have touched on an immensely important point that I seldom see specifically mentioned when this topic comes up. A major key factor is whether an animal, especially a predator animal, sees one lone human or a group of humans. My husband and I were priveliged to take a day’s excursion into the wilds of Katmai national preserve in Alaska to watch the Kodiak bears fish for salmon in the salmon streams. These are the largest bears in the world and there were many mother bears with cubs teaching the cubs how to fish. Needless to say this could have been a very dangerous situation for us puny humans. Our guides were very experienced and knew what to do, however. In addition to not getting too close, we were cautioned to stay close together, so we appeared as a mass rather than as individuals. This was the number one rule. The bears were not bothered by us and we all had a wonderful experience. One of the things I took away from this experience is that it really does seem that man is exponentially more threatening as a group than as an individual. And we are. The animals are right.

楼主，你谈到了一个非常重要的问题，而我很少看到这个问题被专门提到。
一个主要的关键因素是，动物，尤其是食肉动物，看到的是一个人还是一群人。我和丈夫有幸在阿拉斯加卡特迈国家保护区的野外进行了一天的远足，观看科迪亚克熊在鲑鱼溪流中捕鲑鱼。
它们是世界上最大的熊，有很多熊妈妈带着幼崽教幼崽如何捕鱼。不用说，对于我们这些弱小的人类来说，这可能是一个非常危险的情况。不过，我们的导游很有经验，知道该怎么做。除了不能靠得太近之外，我们还被告诫要靠得很近，所以我们以集体的形式出现，而不是单独出现。这是首要规则。熊没有被我们打扰，我们都有一段美好的经历。
我从这次经历中学到的一件事是，人类作为一个群体的威胁似乎比作为一个个体的威胁要大得多。我们确实如此，动物们是对的。

Bill Jones
The other day I saw a sparrow in my front yard. I meant the sparrow no harm. I had no plans to eat him. Nevertheless, this sparrow took off like I was some kind of pariah. I don’t get it. Why can’t these birds figure out who represents a threat to them and who does not?

前几天我在前院看到一只麻雀。我无意伤害麻雀，我没打算吃掉它。然而，这只麻雀飞走了，好像我是什么贱民。我不明白。为什么这些鸟不知道谁对它们有威胁，谁没有?

Cameron Herring
Birds flee when you get too close simply because you'd be able to tell that their eyes are actually cameras and hear the mechanical whirring noises they make when they move.

当你靠得太近时，鸟儿会逃跑，因为你能分辨出它们的眼睛实际上是摄像机，并听得到它们移动时发出的机械呼呼声。

David Hickey
Former (Retired) Professor of Paleobiology and Geology (1975–2019)upxed 2y
We can only be considered an “apex predator” if we insist that each and every human has the tools to be such. Otherwise we’re paltry predators on the edge of starvation. Have you ever watched “Naked and Afraid”? Usually they aren’t allowed weapons like a bow and arrow. Most of the time in the 3 weeks they spend in a wilderness they are unable to find and kill anything other than snakes, frogs, snails, fish, eels, and perhaps a small slow moving mammal like a porcupine. This must have been similar to our diet in the past. I’ve seen only two people of four able to use a bow and arrow to kill a gazelle or boar.
Though not considered predators per se, bacteria, viri and parasites are more devastating to human populations than is any carnivore. Thus, I don’t consider humans to be “apex predators”. I’ve always been of the opinion that considering ourselves to be ‘top of the hill’ is a mistake, a mistake of arrogance which has led us into a position of over population and devastating air and water pollution of CO2 and methane, believing either that it’s not a threat or that someone else will fix it.

只有当我们坚持认为每个人都拥有“顶级掠食者”的工具时，我们才能被认为是“顶级掠食者”。否则我们就是处于饥饿边缘的、微不足道的掠食者。你看过《裸体与恐惧》吗?通常他们不允许携带弓和箭之类的武器。在这三周的时间里，他们大部分时间都呆在野外，除了蛇、青蛙、蜗牛、鱼、鳗鱼，也许还有像豪猪这样移动缓慢的小型哺乳动物之外，他们找不到和杀死任何东西。这一定和我们过去的饮食习惯类似。我见过四个人中只有两个人能用弓箭杀死瞪羚或野猪。
虽然细菌、病毒和寄生虫本身不被认为是捕食者，但它们对人类的破坏性比任何食肉动物都要大。因此，我不认为人类是“顶级捕食者”。我一直认为，认为自己是“山顶之巅”是一个错误，一个傲慢的错误，它导致我们处于人口过剩、二氧化碳和甲烷严重污染空气和水污染的位置。并认为这不是威胁，或者有人会解决问题。

The history of life provides No evidence what-so-ever that humans are special in any way except that we are inventors that modify the environment to suit our needs. Though we have over-populated the planet, abundance does Not make us special—nor does our in habitation of every continent except Antarctica. The definition of ‘success’ in paleobiology is abundance And diversity (of related species). We are the only surviving species of our genus, all others having been absorbed by hybridization and/or otherwise gone extinct. We can now see that we are on the brink of extinction in the next century, not extinction of our species but a dramatic reduction (culling) of the global population and the Loss Of Civilization. Everyone should read “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after warming”, 2019, by David Wallace-Wells). We are a clever species, but not wise. We are at the apex of only foolishness because we don’t use our cleverness to the best benefit of All people.

生命的历史没有提供任何证据表明人类在任何方面都是特殊的，除了我们是改变环境以满足自己需要的发明家。虽然我们的人口过多，但富足并没有使我们变得特别——我们居住在除南极洲以外的每一块大陆也没有特别之处。
在古生物学中，“成功”的定义是(相关物种的)丰度和多样性。我们是我们属中唯一幸存的物种，其他所有的物种都已经被杂交吸收和/或灭绝了。我们现在可以看到，在下个世纪，我们正处于灭绝的边缘，不是我们物种的灭绝，而是全球人口的急剧减少(淘汰)和文明的丧失。每个人都应该读读《不适合居住的地球:变暖后的生活》，（2019年，David Wallace Wells著）。我们是聪明的物种，但并不聪慧。我们处于愚蠢的顶点，因为我们没有利用我们的聪明为所有人带来最大的利益。

Scott Rivers
This is a misuse of the term “apex predator”. It doesn’t mean “the best” or “most efficient” predator. It simply means that an organism preys upon (or eats) animals lower in the food chain and are not normally preyed upon by others. Humans are by definition an apex predator; along with lions, eagles, and the like.

这是对“顶级捕食者”一词的误用。它并不是指“最好的”或“最有效的”捕食者。它简单地说，一个有机体捕食(或吃)食物链较低的动物，通常不会被其他生物捕食。根据定义，人类是顶级掠食者，还有狮子，老鹰之类的。

David Hickey
Yes, I know, But we’re not the Only apex predator (we’re omnivores) as the questioner indicated by “the apex predator on this planet”.

是的，我知道，但我们不是唯一的顶级掠食者(我们是杂食动物)，正如提问者所说的“这个星球上的顶级掠食者”。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Dewi Morgan
Sadly, we’re the most deadly animal they are likely to ever encounter. In terms of cause of death, we’re the driving force in their evolution. If you’re an animal that lives anywhere near enough to human habitation to know what a human is, the one rule about them that you’ve learned from your parents and thousands of years of hunting and all your own interactions with them in your life is: Avoid Humans.
Yeah, on average, an individual human is low-threat. So is an ant or a bee.

可悲的是，我们是它们可能遇到的最致命的动物。就死因而言，我们是它们进化的驱动力。如果你是一种生活在人类居住地附近的动物，你知道人类是什么，关于他们的一条规则，你从你的父母、数千年的狩猎和你生活中与他们的所有互动中学到的是：避开人类。
对，平均来说，一个人的威胁很小。蚂蚁和蜜蜂也是如此。

The rattle on a rattlesnake was a valuable threat against every other predator. But rattlesnakes have mostly fallen silent now, because we killed all the noisy ones.
Being big was a valuable asset for most big predators and other animals, as predators would cull the runts. But in human times, on average mammal sizes of all species have been falling, because we kill the biggest ones.
We’re the driving evolutionary force for all other predators, and their prey. That makes us THE apex, worldwide. Sure, other stuff gets lucky and eats one of us sometimes, but ten others of us hunt it down and kill it. And whatever species it is, mosquito, scorpion, snake, gator, shark… we kill massively more of it, and of its prey, than it kills.

响尾蛇身上发出的声音对其他掠食者来说是非常重要的威胁。但是响尾蛇现在大多已经沉默了，因为我们杀死了所有吵闹的蛇。
对于大多数大型捕食者和其他动物来说，体型大是一项宝贵的资产，因为捕食者会淘汰小个子。但在人类时代，所有物种的哺乳动物的平均体型都在下降，因为我们杀死了最大的。
我们是其他捕食者及其猎物进化的驱动力。这使我们成为世界范围内的佼佼者。当然，其他东西运气好，有时会吃掉我们中的一个，但我们中的十个会追捕它并杀死它。无论它是什么物种，蚊子、蝎子、蛇、鳄鱼、鲨鱼……我们杀死的它和它的猎物比它杀死的多得多。

Ercris Adofo
I find myself wondering are humans the smartest animals on the planet or just dumb livestock blinded by ignorance. We gloat in the magnificence of our brilliant 280,000 years of existance while giving no credit to dinosaurs ruling 165 million years.

我发现自己在想人类是这个星球上最聪明的动物，还是被无知蒙蔽的愚蠢牲畜。
我们为自己辉煌的28万年的存在而沾沾自喜，却不把同样的功劳归于恐龙统治的1亿6500万年。

Dominik Chrástecký
You’re pretty much saying “no evidence what-so-ever that humans are special in any way except the thing we are special in” which is dumb. I get that feeling depressed over how people destroy the Earth is cool nowadays, but I don’t see anyone else than humans writing here on Quora, kinda special if you ask me.
Also no other animal even has means of communicating what you or I just did. Again, seems special in all the animal kingdom.
And your definition of apex predator is more than a little off. We as in species are an apex predator. Not me personally, not most of people on their own but our strategy to survival is collaborating, not being the best on our own.

你基本上是在说“没有任何证据表明人类在任何方面都是特别的，除了我们特别的地方”，这很愚蠢。
我觉得现在人们破坏地球的方式很酷，这让我感到沮丧，但我没有看到除了人类以外的人在Quora上写作，如果你问我，我觉得这挺特别的。而且，其他动物甚至没有办法传达你我刚才所做的事情。这在所有动物界似乎都很特别。
你对顶级捕食者的定义有一点偏差。作为物种，我们是顶级掠食者。不是我个人，不是大多数人自己，但我们的生存策略是合作，不是靠自己做到最好。

Seriously, one on one fight without tools we probably lose to every other predator and many non-predators. But our specialty is in using tools and collaborating. Even when we had much less brain capacity we hunted to extinction all our enemies. And their successors learned that they should not attack us because we will kill them. That’s an apex predator for you.
By the way, I’m not saying your concerns for planet are wrong. They just don’t mean we’re not apex predators.

说真的，没有工具的一对一战斗，我们可能会输给其他捕食者和许多非捕食者。但我们的专长是使用工具和协作。即使当我们的大脑容量更小的时候，我们也会猎杀我们所有的敌人，直至灭绝。他们的后继者知道他们不应该攻击我们，因为我们会杀了他们。这对你来说就是顶级掠食者。
顺便说一下，我并不是说你对地球的担忧是错误的。但这并不意味着我们不是顶级掠食者。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Ezequiel Marquardt
We could exterminate any single fucking predator in a matter of weeks if we felt like it, aint that an apex predator? Of course if you insist in stripping us from our advantages we are doomed, just like a half dead lion. Humans are social animals, a lone naked man is a very unusual occurrence. A band of 15–20 men armed with home made spears is as deadly as you can get. Modern humans dont make bows because they dont need to, but given the right setting, even your fucking granma will be making spears in a matter of months. Of course we are weak, our sense of smell might be lousy at best, but our vision is one of the best, our endurance IS the best, plus our ability to heal, revenge instinct (never ever underestimate that lethal trait), intelligence, versatility, opposable thumb, and a very long etcetera make humans the ultimate apex predators…

只要我们愿意，我们可以在几周内消灭任何一个掠食者，那不是顶级掠食者吗?当然，如果你坚持剥夺我们的优势，我们就会像一头半死的狮子一样，注定要灭亡。人类是群居动物，一个孤独的裸男是很不寻常的事情。
一支由15-20人组成的队伍，配备自制长矛，是最致命的物种。现代人不制造弓是因为他们不需要，但只要条件满足，你特么的几个月后也会制造长矛。
当然，我们是脆弱的，我们的嗅觉可能是最糟糕的，但我们的视觉是最好的之一，我们的耐力是最好的，再加上我们的治疗能力，报复本能(永远不要低估这个致命的特征)，智能，多才多艺，对生拇指等等，使人类成为终极顶级掠食者。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Robert James
They don’t “know” in the same way we know the Earth is the 3rd rock from the sun. They know in the same way we know snakes are dangerous even if it’s the first time we’ve seen one.
How? Because of genetics and evolution i.e. Survival of the Fittest.
In the wild, where animal and humans coexist or live and hunt on the same field, animals that see humans as a threat survived longer than animals that don’t.
Animals that didn’t see our ancestors as threatening were killed or hunted to extinction. You don’t see any sabertooth tigers anymore, do you? Yeah, we killed them all because our ancestors saw them as a threat to our species.
So, the animals that saw how violent we were when angered learned NOT to anger us. This behavior was then passed on to their descendants. The animal baby with the most “human fear” gene would likely outlive those who have little of it.
Fast forward thousands of years later, and it explains why it feels like animals in the wild see us as the apex predator.
PS: Polar bears are different. They see us as a potential source of food because it was only recent in human history we made contact with them, and I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.

他们不像我们知道地球是距离太阳的第三块岩石那样“知道”。但他们知道蛇是危险的，就像我们知道蛇是危险的一样，即使这是我们第一次见到蛇。
怎么做到的?因为遗传和进化，也就是适者生存。
在野生环境中，动物和人类共存或在同一块土地上生活和狩猎，视人类为威胁的动物比不视人类为威胁的动物活得更长。那些认为我们的祖先没有威胁的动物被杀死或猎杀至灭绝。你现在没有看到剑齿虎了吧?没错，我们把他们都杀了因为我们的祖先认为他们是我们种族的威胁。
所以，那些看到我们被激怒时的暴力行为的动物学会了不去激怒我们。这种行为又遗传给了它们的后代。携带最具“人类恐惧”基因的动物宝宝可能会比那些没有这种基因的宝宝活得更长。快进几千年后，这就解释了为什么野生动物会把我们视为顶级掠食者。
PS:北极熊不一样。他们视我们为潜在的食物来源，因为在人类历史上，我们只是在最近才与他们接触，我相信我不需要解释为什么。

Adrian Meredith
Yes. It is something called genetic memory.
Most animals know that we are capable of killing them, including predators, which is why they are wary of killing us. They might attack us alone but not in a group, because they know that if they do then chances are that we will kill them back.
Of note, we have a genetic memory too, and our own fears, though we don’t know why.
Ever wonder why people are terrified by realistic-looking dolls and robots that are too human-like?
Something happened in the past to cause us to have those fears, but there is no historic or religious evidence of what it was.
I’m not saying that we were attacked by living dolls or robots, but maybe something that looked like us attacked.
Maybe it was just our memory of the homo sapiens / Neanderthal war that we know probably happened.
That’s the kind of fear that animals have towards us.
When they see us, this is what they see:
Humans are animal’s chucky dolls.

是的。这就是所谓的遗传记忆。链接：《遗传记忆》——维基
大多数动物知道我们有能力杀死它们，包括捕食者，这就是为什么它们对杀死我们保持警惕。他们可能会单独攻击我们，但不会集体攻击，因为他们知道，如果他们这样做，我们很可能会杀了他们。
值得注意的是，我们也有遗传记忆和我们自己的恐惧，尽管我们不知道为什么。有没有想过为什么人们会被看起来太像人类的玩偶和机器人吓到?过去发生的某些事情导致我们有这些恐惧，但没有历史或宗教证据证明它是怎么回事。
我不是说我们被活的娃娃或机器人袭击了，但可能是一些看起来像我们的东西袭击了。也许这只是我们对智人与尼安德特人之间可能发生的战争的记忆。这就是动物对我们的恐惧。

Christoforos Paphitis
We are not apex predators on our own, however as a collective we are. Throughout ancient history humans have been able to bring down huge animals but only as a collective. A single human alone would get attacked and animals in general but especially predators would not be afraid of him. Animals have keen senses and can smell the emotional state of a human or a collective. A single human stranded in the wilderness would smell of fear and uncertainty, easy prey, in a collective however the same human would smell of confidence and ready to pounce and animals do fear that.

我们作为个体不是食物链顶端的捕食者，但作为一个集体，我们是。
纵观古代史，人类能够打倒大型动物，但那是因为作为一个集体。一个人，就会受到攻击，一般的动物尤其是掠食者不会害怕他。
动物有敏锐的感官，可以嗅到人类或集体的情绪状态。一个人被困在荒野中，会嗅到恐惧和不确定性的味道，这是很容易被捕食的猎物，但在一个集体中，同样的人会嗅到自信，随时准备猛扑，而动物们都害怕这一点。

Brett Aubrey
No, as a general rule, for say, Lions, leopards and cheetahs. When in Africa, we found that the lions couldn’t care less about us and would, for instance, lie in the shadow of our Toyota minivan to get out of the sun, while on the hunt. That was an eye-opener for me and gave me a new perspective when that U.S. dentist shot the popular old lion, Cecil, with bow and arrow (it was likely no ‘hunt’ at all, as they acted like humans were no threat at all.) I suggest that in an area where hunting was permitted and frequented by hunters, then they’d probably recognize us as an apex predator and be very wary, but it wouldn’t be all over.
And most of the other animals were much more concerned about big cats than humans taking pictures.

不，我们不是，一般来说，（顶级猎食者是）狮子、豹子和猎豹。在非洲时，我们发现狮子一点也不在意我们，比如，在狩猎时，它们会躺在我们丰田小货车的阴影下躲避太阳。当那个美国牙医用弓箭射杀了一头很受欢迎的老狮子塞西尔(Cecil)时，我大开眼界，有了一个新的视角(这可能根本不是“狩猎”，因为它们表现得好像人类根本不构成威胁一样)。
我认为，在一个猎人允许狩猎并经常出没的地区，他们可能会认出我们是顶级掠食者，并非常警惕，但这不会是全部。与人类拍照相比，大多数其他动物更关心大型猫科动物。

Giovanni Iacopetti
Not at an instinctive level.
Animals that have a culture (like mammals for example) and lived next to us, and we used to kill, they know we are dangerous.
Otherwise we usually don’t behave like a predator, don’t smell like a predator so they don’t consider us as such.
We are not hardwired in their brain, but we have something hardwired in our (our innate fear of long teeth, like the vampire, probably come from when we were not so apex in Africa, or near the water), so probably we were not that dangerous to their population for enough time.

对我们人类的感知不是出于本能。
那些有自己文化的动物(比如哺乳动物)和我们生活在一起，我们曾经杀戮，它们知道我们是危险的。除此之外，我们通常表现得不像捕食者，闻起来不像捕食者，所以他们不认为我们是捕食者。
我们在它们的大脑中并没有固定的结构，但在我们的大脑中却有一些固定的结构(我们对长牙的固有恐惧，比如吸血鬼，可能来自于我们在非洲或者在水边还不是顶级猎食者的时候)，所以很可能在足够长的时间里，我们对它们的种群没有那么危险。
（二）