If all the animals in the world were to wage war on humans, would we stand a chance?

I posted this same question on a different website, but I did not get a lot of responses. My Uncle was talking about a theory that his wife was thinking about, which involved every animal and every insect attacking humans and if this were to happen would we even stand a chance if something like that happened, which I doubt it will, but none the less is always something to think about. So what do you think? Can we survive if that happened?

Interesting idea, and I was a big fan of movies like Day of the Animals, so I always wondered..

In a straight fight with animals attacking and killing humans, animals would ultimately not stand a chance. A real world scenario would be any advanced (ie gun bearing) nation versus a less advanced (ie handmade weapons) nation. Though tenacity and ingenuity can account for a lot, and there have been surprising upsets in the past, I think the conclusion is foregone and the animals would ultimately lose.

But...

It's interesting that you would add insects to the equation because I believe this might tip the scales. With insects numbering in the billions, a concerted effort could do more damage than just bodily harm. Insects could wipe out entire crops, and have been known to, in minutes. They could weaken structures perhaps to the point of collapse. They would also make conditions physically and psychologically miserable with bites and natural biological weapons.

Now, with animals being able to do some of the same damage to food sources as insects, aligned together against us, we humans would not stand a chance.

[edit on 27-12-2008 by TravelerintheDark]

yeah i dont think we would stand a chance. We would be screwed

We wouldn't stand a chance. As the aforementioned post stated the insects alone out number us a billion to one. between the poisonous spiders, centipedes and ants we'd be over run within a very short time.

We can kill the big animals, not a problem. It would be a slaughter. It's all them nasty little buggers that would do us in. Imagine going to sleep and waking up with biting creepy crawlies all over you.

We couldn't kill them all fast enough.

We wouldn't stand a chance.

Im rather worried about my own species, but anyways, Im convinced that most animals are more intelligent than we thought.... we would be the loosers if they group up to gain back world domination of total peace and naturality, no more NWOs and Wars, just the food chain to worry about!!

[edit on 27-12-2008 by Clairaudience]

All flies, tsese n' all. All spiders, snakes, bed bugs, cockroaches, dogs, cats, rats, mice. Yeah, I reckon they would screw up our wires (rats), babies (spiders), disease (cockroaches), sleep (lice and bedbugs), violence (rabid dogs, all at once). Yup, they'd have a good go. Good that our pets love us, hey.

Umm insects are animals... but I get what you mean.

A surprise attack would cripple us really hard, as long as the other living beings (plants, bacteria, etc) still remain allies we're safe .

Originally posted by kingsnake
Umm insects are animals... but I get what you mean.

A surprise attack would cripple us really hard, as long as the other living beings (plants, bacteria, etc) still remain allies we're safe

.

Insects are animals by the way. I take greater issue with you thinking a plant can stop an Army Ant. We're not safe. This is a serious issue, we need to secure our safety from ants, spider, land walking sharks, all kinds of potential danger.
The first thing we need to do is use GM technology to get plants that can walk. This is imperative if we are to ensure that plant leaves can act as wings and take dangerous animals away from us. Plants should be able to fly. They can take out birds that way, but it is likely that it is going to take generations of GM to ensure us of that safe practicality.
We need to ensure that we get a harmony between dangerous animal and friendly plant, and through that work towards a harmonious interspecies world.

Interesting questions, I think just the bee's, flies, ants, and spiders would be enough to kill us off. There's at least 30,000 different species of the above listed, wow can you imagine that..what a way to die..

so how did Jim die? A fly by, the pigeons bombarded him with poop he couldn't run away in time...

I hate pigeon poop

I hope nothing like this ever happens, good theory..

No...we would win eventually,but there would be no eco system left so we would still become extinct eventually.If we are talking about pathogens and viruses then thats diffferent those are perfect for wiping out species.I can see a large strain mutating and hitting us hard soon because of the antiobiotic sweetie handout going on at the moment.

Bees have venom, as do wasps, pigeon poop is posionous, but hornets inject it straight into you, like army ants, cobras, and constrictors wrestle you. I think if Mowgli got his way that there would be a way to not discriminate between animals. Sheer Khan the Tiger said it philosopically, 'I want to eat you, but if I cannot, I might respect you.' That was a very wise tiger. He knew the rules and we need to pull on board all the mammals, from Lions, to Rats, who could go on strike and gnaw through all our broadband.

It's complicated, but we'll get there.

Insects? Nothing a bunch of gas masks and ton on of Raid wouldnt fix.

Ya gotta remember we are smart (well some of us =) ) We would poison them plain and simple, sure it would ruin our planet not to have them around, but we would win the battle.. Problem is with out them we would lose the war.

reply to post by ShiftTrio


They get immune to poisons. Give 'em 50 years and they'll score a hit.....

Yea I'm not sure if we would win now, it seems that if it came down to it we woulld be forced underground, behind steel walls with the doors closed. A lot of food would be needed but eventually the food supply would run out forcing us into the outside world. Seems like a grim idea..

Originally posted by TheMythLives
Yea I'm not sure if we would win now, it seems that if it came down to it we woulld be forced underground, behind steel walls with the doors closed. A lot of food would be needed but eventually the food supply would run out forcing us into the outside world. Seems like a grim idea..

How do you think the world will evolve in 200 million years time. 200 million years ago we had neither flowering plants, bees or hornets......

Only the insects (well, the other arthropods too) would matter. Sure, a few millon might be taken down by large dogs, cougars, lions, tigers, bears, alligators, elephants, cows, etc, but they're no major threat. Anything big enough to individually threaten a human is big enough to easily shoot. Also: they're very rare because the environment can't support many large predators per unit land. Humans have the advantage of being omnivores; 100 meters square per person is sufficient growing space for a vegetarian lifestyle.

Rats and such spread pestilence and disease and eat food supplies, but frankly, I don't see how them having malice towards mankind would make them do that any more than they do now.

Birds are generally weak, fragile things, the exceptions have one major thing in common: they're on the brink of extinction. Crows are probably the most threatening, since they're pretty common yet could still do more than just suicidally run into a person, what with their little talons and all.

Insects are threatening, since they have the capability of breeding to sufficient numbers to eat crops, but can't really be combated directly. Plus, since they do most of the pollinisation, with other animals taking up most of the rest, there would be few viable crops left. Notably corn, rice, peanuts, soybeans; which fortunately enough, can be more or less lived off of for years. Thing is, the only real change would be in the rate of attack by the poisonous insects, since the various herbivorous insects are already doing their damnedest to eat all crops and natural growth in order to fuel their reproduction.

Modern society is actually arranged pretty well for this sort of thing. Most of the dangerous insects can't survive in cities, because they'll starve. Poisionous spiders can kill people, but can't eat them. Depending on how arbitrarially organized the animals get to be, I suppose that they could form a kind of suicidal logistics trail, with combat-worthless animals lining up to be eaten by deadlier animals, but that's kind of wierd. People could just take to sleeping in form fitting neoprene suits, like wetsuits. About the only bugs I can see getting through that are the camel and bird-eating spiders, and mabye some of the beefiest scorpions; none of which are any serious threat to a person, compared to, say, an angry housecat.

Huge numbers of people in rural areas would die in their sleep, at least, in areas populated with large numbers of venomous insects.

The main problem for america is so much of our agriculture is based on cattle, which, more important than being massive and fairly deadly when enraged, are a major source of food that will have to be replaced quickly. Frankly, I thin we could go on factory farming chickens; they're rather feeble, and couldn't hope to do anything about it, organized or not.

Even if everything goes wrong, people could still get by as a last-ditch effort out in the seas and in permanently frigid areas, where most insects can't operate well. The seas are fairly safe; most of the large or dangerous fauna is on the brink of extinction due to whaling, shark trade, and overfishing. As long as people stay out of the water itself, it should be fine. And while humans are tropical critters, our ability to wear clothing makes us some of the best-adapted things around for arctic climates.

Cool topic..I personally do not like hunting animals and I often joke with the hunters who enter my base to hunt that one day dont be surprised when they start shooting back, then lets see the real challenge begin...

Well if time wasn't a factor you could,

Build a building solely made of the blue zapper lights for the flying insects, place an inner barrier of the sticky fly things that you hang from the walls to trap any more oncoming insects that get by the zappers.

Then also surround the grounds with motion detectors and target trackers, when detecting motion fires off liquid oxygen in the general direction pretty much killing anything in range of it. Further out place electrified pieces of reinforced Plexiglas so the birds fly smack into it and zap, not to mention anything else like cats smacking into it.

The true predators will not bother coming too near because they'll all be eating the fried animals laying around and then they'll need to drink from the contaminated water holes we have set up.

The birds that do get through the Plexiglas stage will be eating the dead insects all over the ground and head straight for the contaminated water afterwords too.

Then have everyone ready with boots, flyswatters and guns for whatever is left.

How do we keep electricity running? Everyone is also on a Bike hooked to a generator pedaling to keep up the power. Along with some power generating windmills.

Oh wait the cockroaches, shoot were screwed leave it to them to screw everything up.

Maybe hitching a ride to mars would be a safer alternative.

So ya you include all species living on earth against man/woman we are dead unless we destroy the entire planet.

Edit: Wait a minute what about some type of frequency/wave generator in theory we could cause extraordinaire pain to any animal that breaches the perimeter emitting these frequencies if it was done encompassing the entire area. Not to mention it would really mess with the senses of say things like bats.

[edit on 28-12-2008 by Darthorious]

reply to post by Darthorious


Yea, kinda of like that dog whistle that only they can here. It drives my neighbors dog insane when she uses it.

Why am I getting all itchy?

No we wouldn't stand a cha.....