Humans have emerged as super predators, according to latest research.
Humans are hundreds of times deadlier than the great white shark. Surprised by the statement? Well, this is what scientists in the UK have said. According to a BBC report, nearly half of all wild animals are threatened with extinction because humans use about a third of them for food, medicine, or as pets. Humans have always dominated the food chain, but this is the first time that researchers have quantified tis dominance - claiming that our impact is up to 300 times greater than the top predators.
"The size and scale of what we found surprised us. Humans have a breath-taking diversity of uses of animals but we need to move towards sustainable human-nature relationships across the globe," Dr Rob Cooke of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, told the BBC.
The research is based on analysis of data on almost 50,000 different wild mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that humans harvest for different reasons.
It was discovered that a third of all vertebrate species - 14,663 - are used or traded by humans, and 39 per cent of these are headed for extinction.
The results of the research have been published in the journal Communications Biology.
The BBC report also said that Anthropocene, a time when human activity has dominated influences on climate and the environment, is about to begin.
Domesticated animals now make up the majority of animal species on land, shaping the natural world, it added.
The researchers warned that continued overexploitation of wild animals will have "profound consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem function".