by Griz

Created on: May 08, 2008

Four large mammals, one reptile, four snakes, four arachnids, a few insects. That is the catalog of animals in North America that are dangerous to humans. If you have half a brain, you will never be in danger from any of these animals. If you don't have half a brain, you will be in danger from many animals (and other things) that shouldn't be dangerous. If the rest of us have any luck, natural selection will take its course.

For those of us with half a brain, going into the wilderness does not need to be a fearful thing. We only fear what is unknown to us. If you educate yourself on these dangerous animals you need never worry for your safety. Of course there are two legged animals that are far more dangerous than any wild creature, but that's a subject for the sociology and psychology sections. Here, we're going to talk mostly about bears.

In North America, the four mammals that will kill you are the wolf, mountain lion, moose, and bear. I suppose at some point in the history of this continent some buffoon got himself torn to pieces by raccoons or had a bison in Yellowstone step on his neck, but those are really deaths by stupid misadventure and outside the scope of this discussion.

Let's get wolves out of the way right off. I don't believe there's any record of a fatal wolf attack on a human. Perhaps no record of attack at all. Even back in the old days when there were a lot of them. Now you can consider yourself lucky to even see one and where they live these days there's plenty of deer (and sheep but we won't go there) and they are not interested in eating you.

Mountain lion attacks are on the rise. This is simply a matter of encroachment. We build our houses further and further into wild land and the big cats have nowhere to go. Then we go into their yard and act like food. Have you ever seen a cat that can resist something running away from it? Interestingly, though, because of this encroachment on habitat, the attacks are happening more in urban areas. Makes sense. If the cat has someplace to go to get away from you and a steady food source, you're probably never even going to see him. Well, to be fair, if he decides to stalk and kill you, you'll probably never see him either.

Bull moose have bad attitudes and they are territorial. They really don't have much motivation to avoid people. If you annoy one you will have a major problem on your hand since they are fast and they are tall and they can reach you up in that tree. Of our four mammals, though, the

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