{"id":151701,"date":"2025-11-25T08:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T08:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/151701\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T08:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T08:06:11","slug":"deadly-city-dwellers-4-lethal-apex-predators-lurking-in-urban-streets-from-big-cats-to-deadly-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/151701\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly city dwellers: 4 lethal apex predators lurking in urban streets, from big cats to deadly bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the sun sets over our cities, a hidden world awakens. In the alleys of Mumbai, yellow eyes glint from the darkness\u2013 leopards on the prowl. In Harar, Ethiopia, hyenas silently roam the streets, scavenging and observing the humans who feed them by hand. <\/p>\n

Even in the frozen outskirts of Canada or the suburbs of Durban, polar bears and black mambas are quietly navigating the edge between wilderness and civilisation. <\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t just stray animals\u2014they are apex predators, scavengers, and survivors who have learned to thrive in human-dominated landscapes.<\/p>\n

Leopard, Mumbai, India\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two yellow orbs shine back at you in the darkness, as something catches the beam from your headlights in its eyes. Moments later, they\u2019re gone. Should you find yourself driving along the back streets of Mumbai after dark, you might just have glimpsed a leopard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Against the odds, the world\u2019s most cosmopolitan big cat has gained a pawhold in the megacity, home to more than 20 million people.<\/p>\n

By day, the\u00a0leopards<\/a>\u00a0mostly hide up in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the green heart of the city, where researchers counted 47 adult cats and eight cubs in 2018. At night, they prowl the neighbouring alleys and backyards, picking off stray dogs, and feral pigs and goats.<\/p>\n

Black mamba, Durban, South Africa
\n\"\"Getty images<\/p>\n

Averaging lengths of two to three metres, the black mamba is Africa\u2019s largest\u00a0venomous<\/a>\u00a0snake. It is an\u00a0apex predator<\/a>, feeding on rodents, birds and other animals. When these prey species are exposed to pollutants, they absorb heavy metals, which are then passed on to the feasting snakes. The metals gradually accumulate in the snakes’ tissues.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack mambas are common in the Durban area, and individuals often live in the same refuge for years,\u201d explains Professor Graham Alexander, a herpetologist (someone who studies\u00a0amphibians and reptiles<\/a>) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

Polar bears, Churchill, Canada<\/p>\n

Once the\u00a0Arctic<\/a>\u00a0sea ice has melted in the summer,\u00a0polar bears<\/a>\u00a0are half-starved for much of the year, and it\u2019s this that makes them dangerous. They gather in great numbers in the small town of\u00a0Churchill<\/a>, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, waiting for the sea ice to refreeze so they can hunt seals again, and encounters with humans are not uncommon though not usually fatal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hyenas, Harar, Ethiopia
\n\"\"Getty<\/p>\n

The hyenas of Harar, Ethiopia\u2014often called the \u201cHyenas of Hyena Man\u201d\u2014are part of a long-standing and unusual relationship between humans and wildlife.<\/p>\n

For generations, spotted hyenas have roamed the ancient walled city, scavenging food at night and playing an important role in controlling waste and reducing disease. <\/p>\n

What makes Harar unique is the tradition of \u201chyena feeding,\u201d in which selected families pass down the practice of offering meat to the animals . Over time, the hyenas have become remarkably tolerant of people, approaching calmly and even eating directly from a feeder\u2019s hand or mouth. <\/p>\n

This coexistence blends practicality with spiritual belief: many locals view the hyenas as protectors that guard the city from harmful spirits, preserving a fascinating example of mutual adaptation between humans and a typically feared predator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the sun sets over our cities, a hidden world awakens. In the alleys of Mumbai, yellow eyes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-151701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}