In a co-authored article for The Conversation, Associate Professor Trish Fleming discusses whether human structures and environments are helping predators improve their hunting success.

Trish Fleming and fellow researcher Dr Bill Bateman identified four ways that predators take advantage of human habitats, including how the structures we build and the things we do make prey species more vulnerable. For example, Wedge-tailed Eagles follow harvesters on farms to catch animals flushed out by machinery.

She predicts that some predators are likely to become more abundant, with positive and negative implications.

“Predators can be vital for maintaining a balanced ecosystem. However, predator species can have a huge effect on their environment… and can easily become invasive animals, as we have seen with the introduction of cats into Australia,” she writes.

Read the full article.