Cavemen, Carnivores and Cities:
A Co-evolutionary Timeline
CURRENT CONSERVATION MAGAZINE 2024 (VOLUME 18 - Issue 1)
Editorial illustration created for Current Conservation Magazine accompanying an article on the evolving relationship between humans and large carnivores in increasingly urbanized landscapes. The artwork explores habitat fragmentation, wildlife adaptation, ecosystem balance, conservation challenges, and the future of human-carnivore coexistence through visual storytelling and science communication.
Urbanization is intensifying human-carnivore conflicts as shared spaces lead to more frequent interactions, often with negative consequences. Carnivores lose habitat and may threaten human lives, property, and livelihoods. As apex predators, they are vital for ecosystem balance. Their decline can trigger trophic cascades, disrupting prey populations, vegetation, and essential ecological services like disease control, wildfire prevention, and carbon sequestration.
Besides the emergence of behavioural adaptations, urbanisation can also generate genetic changes within large carnivore populations. Habitat fragmentation caused by urbanisation disrupts habitat connectivity due to the emergence of human avoidance behaviours.
