Why are big animals so rare?
Large animals need more food than smaller animals, and their size restricts where they can go to find it. Both factors determine not only where large animals are found in nature, but also how much they are affected by human activity such as deforestation. A small animal needs a small amount of food, and it can usually find it in a fairly limited area. Thus, a given patch of forest can support many raccoons, but might only provide enough resources for one or two bears. An average black bear may need as much as one hundred times the space required by a raccoon. When a forest is disrupted by the building of a highway through it, for example small forest dwellers may cope with the change fairly readily, but a larger animal may find itself confined to only a fraction of its former range, too small a space to sustain it. While being large reduces the danger from predators, it also poses challenges in getting around a big creature might have trouble moving through the dense undergrowth of a f
