How could a species survive on just luring in and eating humans?

In a question about mermaids, it was proposed that they might have evolved to look like humans to lure them in and prey on them.

How could a creature survive on a diet of nothing but lured-in humans?

As I see it, there are two problems: finding humans who don't know any better, and finding enough humans without getting caught.

1) Humans are generally good at learning what things to avoid, and good at passing on that information to other humans. I'd think that, quite quickly, people would learn not to trust women shipwrecked on islands (or whatever such a creature would disguise itself as). It would be very hard to find humans who don't know any better.

2) If you eat a human every day, every week, or even every month, someone's bound to notice. For most of human existence, we didn't live in cities of millions of people, but in very small bands. Even a single person going missing would be noticed very quickly. Once the humans realized what was going on, they'd either kill the predator or run away.

So is there any way that a species could survive just by luring in humans?

(By the way, I'm not just asking about mermaids, I'm asking about any kind of creature that could survive by luring in and eating humans, in any environment.)

posted over 8 years ago

Joe‭

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