As for the media, consider the recent tabloid obsession with Gilberto Valle, New York City’s so-called “Cannibal Cop” who was accused of conspiring to kidnap, cook, and devour his wife and another woman. “He is guilty of nothing more than having very unconventional thoughts,” said Paul Gardephe, the judge who eventually overturned Valle’s conviction. But besides an interesting take on “thought crimes,” Valle’s story also provided a glimpse into the darker corners of the Internet, where there are apparently thousands of people whose everyday fantasies revolve around cannibalizing coworkers, loved ones, or even you, Dear Reader.
Most cannibalism-related crimes, though, are thought to stem from psychological aberrations. According to forensic pathologist George Palermo, cannibal killers “are people who have a tremendous desire to destroy—a tremendous amount of hostility that they need to release. They have something stored up inside them in order to reach the point of where they want to destroy the human body and eat human flesh, and they feel a need to release that violence.” Of course, such incidents are immediately condemned, although once again they often lead to fame for the cannibal and millions of dollars in revenue for those who care to recreate their stories in books or on film.
If one goes by the examples in the media (“Woman Dies After Cannibal Eats Her Face”; “Nude Face-eating Cannibal? Must Be Miami”), it would certainly seem that there are more cannibal killers out there than ever before. Even if the same percentage of cannibal killers exists now as has in the past (even the recent past), the population explosion across the planet would make it likely that there are simply more of them now. Then there’s the fact that overpopulation and overcrowding are key catalysts for cannibalistic behavior in nature. Of course, some would consider it a stretch to extrapolate human behavior from the examples of spiders, fish, or hamsters. But for a zoologist, those comparisons are far less problematic.
So why the fascination with cannibalism? Or vampirism? Or serial killers? Perhaps the violent scenarios we watch and read about on a daily basis are a form of drug—one that creates excitement in lives that might otherwise be mundane and unfulfilled. According to Andrew Silke, head of criminology at the University of East London, “Viewing anything that involves violence or death will kick-start a lot of psychological processes, such as stress and excitement. Your brain’s neocortex becomes psychologically aroused, but not in a dangerous way since you’re in the safe environment of your own home.”
There is no definitive answer as to why cannibalism provides us with such stimulation, although what is clear, and what remains extremely disturbing for me, is our increasing desensitization to violence and gore—a trait that does not bode well for the future.
Along those lines, what would it take for cannibalism to become widespread behavior? Could it happen and, if so, how might that come about? Discounting a zombie apocalypse for now, I believe there’s a scientific basis for outbreaks of widespread cannibalism, and the trigger could be something that has initiated it again and again throughout history.
The process of desertification is taking place right now in the United States, in places like Texas and even California, where researchers Daniel Griffin and Kevin Anchukaitis used soil moisture to measure drought. They determined the 2012–2014 period to be the most arid on record in 1,200 years, with 2014 coming in as the driest single year. Around the globe, across vast expanses of China, Syria, and central Africa, regions that only recently experienced dry seasons are becoming deserts. The populations of Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, three of the poorest countries in the world, are suffering through the worst drought conditions in 60 years.
In the Darfur region of the Sudan (Africa’s third largest country), rainfall has fallen off 30 percent over the past 40 years, and the Sahara desert is advancing into what was once farmland at a rate of one mile per year. Famine and diminishing access to fresh water are now a daily reality for more than 12 million Africans, and these problems are growing worse every year. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), many of the conflicts in Africa, such as those between farmers and herdsmen, have been driven by “climate change and environmental degradation.”