INTRODUCTION

Interactions between wildlife and humans come in many forms, from indirect observation, like the remote detection of smells or signs, or sightings (mutual and singular), to direct contact. In this chapter, we address the latter form, direct contact. Specifically, we deal with perhaps the most negative and dramatic of these interactions (from the human perspective), attacks on humans by wildlife. And, from such actions may follow perhaps the most unacceptable result, serious human injury or the loss of human life. Outside of rare or unwitting contact, most direct contacts between wildlife and humans can be viewed as negative for the individual wildlife involved.

Attacks on humans, with the animal intending to repel or even kill, fall in the extreme end of the direct contact category (Thirgood et al., Chapter 2). Attacks on humans by wildlife are not new. It is important to note that humans have been preyed upon from the earliest forms of our genus Homo and even earlier forms of hominids (Kruuk 2002). Although we have become increasingly accomplished in our ability to prey upon and defend ourselves against other animals, early hominids were highly vulnerable to a wide variety of predators and competitors (Kruuk 2002; Miller 2002). Even today, some of our primate relatives have some of the most intricate and developed forms of predator avoidance known (Miller 2002). However, the early and increasingly more elaborate development of tools separated us from other primates.