It is appropriate, however, that escape responses to large moving objects should be difficult to extinguish. But, because hundreds of cars passed by throughout the day, running for shelter every time a car passed wouldn't be energy efficient. In the absence of attacks, many organisms learn to ignore stimuli that are constant or occur frequently. This is a behavioral process called habituation. It occurs widely in the animal kingdom.
Scarecrows cease to scare.
Plastic owls on buildings finally fail to exclude roosting starlings, and recordings of their alarm calls eventually fail to rid airports of feeding seagulls. The history of oceanic islands is one of human destruction. Animals and plants have been ravaged by short-sighted exploitation for food, fashion and fancy. The graveyard of vanished species is ominously impressive, with the dodo perhaps the best known. Birds were dominant on many of the islands because flying creatures were most likely to reach islands distant from populating mainlands.