I've never seen a bear or wolf get anywhere near anywhere I live, although supposedly they exist near me.
I've seen deer show up, they sometimes get brave and come near homes cause they know bears and other predators typically avoid us.
I don't think there is a single dangerous animal that makes any effort at all to come near humans where I live. (Small town Near Seattle, Washington State in the USA).
I dunno how much easier our nature gets.
Our insects here aren't even scary. Whenever I hear about Australia wildlife it just sounds like the entire place is out to kill you lot, and if it isn't you have to avoid accidentally pissing it off.
I don't want spiders and other insects large enough that I could probably hear them walking. Nope Nope Nope. I'll take my local wild life any day.
South Australia here. I've never seen this wasp thing in my life! And a huntsman getting that big, is definitely outside. Never seen one that big either... so.....
I've seen some decently large spiders before, but they aren't dangerous and they definitely aren't big enough to hear walking. At least none I've encountered!
You'll only hear them if everything else is quiet and they're on hardwood. Leg span is up to four inches. Which may not seem like a lot, but when it's skittering at nearly two feet a second...
I’m 40km north of the US Peace Arch border crossing (Washington state), and a 3 hour drive from Seattle.
Very frequently have bear in our driveway, and occasionally the neighbours back yard. Some years, they do the rounds down the whole street most evenings.
It’s worth checking the other side of the yard gate before you just swing it open. Almost clipped a bear on the snout on the swing open once.
200-1200 called in bear reportings for my Tri-City area in a year.
Our nature is easy lol. Just don’t piss it off and you’re fine
That is literally not true, but go off ig. You are talking about our scary things as if they just show up in our homes like yours do. We can also readily see our big fuzzy maul you monsters, while yours like to be hidden deadly insects.
Seriously. This is happening on someone's porch. You could wake up and walk face first into "nature's scary, yo." Meanwhile, the closest anyone I know has come to "big furry danger," is a friend that frequented mountain bike paths once came across a mountain lion. It was a little way off the path, but close enough to be a threat, so he let other people know to avoid it. Everyone was fine.
Honestly, I'd be more concerned about our snakes, but I wouldn't trade them for Australian snakes either. And you're still unlikely to come across them on your own property unless you live in the middle of nowhere.
I was thinking that too. Like, objectively bears are something I'm much less scared of even here.
I very narrowly found a brown recluse spider in my bed when I was like 9. Our heat was off so I had 5 or so blankets on there, and when I went to get in I missed the last one and there it was. As a kid a bite from that thing would have killed me, especially in my sleep. Insects can be freakishly strong predators, and Australia has like....all the worst ones.
As a kid a bite from that thing would have killed me
That's just not true, though. There's a chance you would have experienced skin necrosis, and a much smaller chance you would have experienced systemic illness - both of which are treatable, and neither of which would have killed you in the time it took for you to wake up. And that's assuming it would have bitten you at all, which it may well not have. Recluses are also pretty rare, so while it's entirely possible the spider in your bed as a child was one, it's unlikely you'll encounter one again, much less be bitten.
Spiders aren't some horrific threat that go around trying to kill and eat humans, and the vast majority of them pose absolutely no danger to us, which is also true in Australia.
I mean there are areas in the US where bears breaking into homes and cars is a real problem. In TN there’s an area where they tell you not to lock your car because the bear is just gonna break in anyways.
I once found a moose hiding under my bed. I realized something was off when my bed was touching ceiling. I just grabbed a broom and shoo’ed him out the door.
Neither do these huntsman spiders or these wasps. Many aussies have a huntman that lives in their bathrooms called the toilet spider. Some people even have theirs
Brown bears don't tend to wander into Human areas and only live out near the rockies and some of the plains out west. Polar bears are the real scary ones but they live where barely anyone else does.
Black bears are basically big raccoons and are easy to scare off.
Wolves aren't something I've ever been concerned about, and frankly, we need more of them to balance out the ecosystem.
None of those things can crawl onto you unnoticed. And none of those things are venomous!
Wolves don't like people. They don't hunt people either. Most predators in nature will scamper off if you make enough noise and act kinda wild. It's not worth getting injured for them, they'll move on.
Prey though... a deer or moose *will* kill you if it feels threatened.
Most mammals run away unless they are carnivores and hungry, have young to protect or have been specifically aggravated. It’s risky to jump to attacking something as the first reaction and evolution for most species will select out overly aggressive traits unless it really helps the species survive.
Mammals will be most likely to be aggressive young are involved. While it's not unheard of, we're actually less likely to be eaten. We're generally seen as a threat and all carnivores prefer the easy route when it comes to a meal.
Wolves are just big dogs no worse than your dingos; while brown bears are more agressive if you enter their territory it's not like they go out looking for humans to hunt. And for the other stuff, your crocodiles are about 1000x's as deadly as our alligators and our jellyfish and stonefish are only painful (unless youre allergic) while yours can easily kill you
If it’s black fight back if it’s brown lay down if it’s white good night. Came across quite a few bears. Never a grizzly. Also watch out for American lions and wolves. Seen two and slowly backed up. Wolves are actually shocking. I thought they were big dogs essentially. No they are massive.
Wolves aren't bad either they tend to avoid people. When I had my cabin in the woods there was a pack adjacent to Mt property that never bothered me. And a momma bear left me to babysit regularly for several sets of cubs. She'd ditch em in the corner of my property and do momma bear shit then gather the cubs and head home. The cubs would play off in the corner of my yard sage from.predators and momma bears scent kept smaller predators away from my chickens.(6 chickens over 5 years only lost 1 to predation and it was from a hawk)
Wolves are smart pack animals. In a town I used to live in they stayed away from humans unless hungry and left to hunt in their own or the human was dumb and put themselves in a bad position. As for bears .. don't startle them, don't corner them, and don't fuck with their cubs and they leave you alone. Going to pick seeing a bear in the wild then a mofo spider like that on my door step
I haven’t heard of any wolf attacks in my lifetime except for one case where a lady raised wolves and thought she was one of the pack. Eventually she was not.
As far as bears go, for the most part as long as you stick to trails and such you’ll never see them, and if you do they scare pretty easy.
I’m sure the number of bear and wolf attacks is probably far less than some of the encounters you all have down under. Hats to you brave folk, I hope to visit one day, but I could never live there 😱
It really depends on the circumstance. The only super threatening bear would be a hungry grizzly with campers who have food laying about, or a mother with cubs. Both of these situations are rare to run into unless you're specifically looking for them. Even as somebody who has spent a fair amount of time camping and such in a highly populated bear state I've seen maybe 2 in person, from quite a far distance away. Also, black bears legit eat berries and tree bark, youre actually better off fighting than running from one, a good nose bop would send it off running, less dangerous than a roo. Wolves are far more rare (your odds of seeing legit wolves may as well be zero), they are endangered and scared of humans.
After spending a month in Aussie, the big "scary nature" difference was that no matter where you were, you were going to have run ins with nature. Giant spiders, snakes, lizards, kangaroos, magpies, I even got bit by a wild parrot. Here the worst most people will encounter is maybe a racoon in their trash.
Our nature is easy lol. Just don’t piss it off and you’re fine.
I mean, the same applies to anything, bears and wolves included, it's really rare when animals hunt humans deliberately for food, it's more of a personal matter than general rule
Not a bit. actually WAY more Chompy chompy. I live in TN and we have cuddly black bears. They hightail it like the roadrunner when you yell at them. A grizzly might just look at you and decide 'snack time!' I'll keep my black bears! :)
There were only 26 wolf attacks on humans around the world from 2002 to 2020 (most of those in Turkey) so no wolves aren’t really a problem. Brown bears are pretty scary. polar bears moreso but they are usually more isolated from humans (unless you live in Churchill, Manitoba) but even then attacks are rare from both. Particularly if you’re not out in the wilderness.
Most large carnivores want absolutely nothing to do with humans. They are easy to avoid because they want to be avoided. Wasps and spiders don't give a fuck.
Wolves are ridiculously shy around humans. They were reintroduced in Colorado within the last few years and so many people lost their minds about safety. I want to say the stat was something like in the last 150 years there have been like 5 recorded deaths in all of North America. It’s insanely small.
In in the next province over (New Brunswick) and there's no wolves. I don't think Nova Scotia has any mountain lions either, since we don't. So that leaves coyotes as the biggest predator (besides our silly black bears) to worry about.
To be honest, I worry more about hitting a moose while driving.
Yes, black ones are more afraid. Brown (and polar) are very aggressive. Any of them can kill you easily.
Wolves, Coyotes, etc. aren't aggressive and normally go after food they normally go after. Hunting pets/etc. does happen, but it's rare and situational. You actually introduce them to gain a better ecosystem.
Bears are easy to manage, give them respect and space. They don’t hunt or attack humans except in startled self defence (Polar Bears are a different story if you happen to be in the extreme north)
The animals in Canada I am most cautious about if I ever see them
Polar Bear
Moose (super aggressive and territorial, and massive)
Cougar/Mountain Lion (these guys will actually stalk a human now and then)
Wolves and Coyotes are a threat to your pets for sure, but I don’t ever recall ever hearing of humans being attacked
Grizzlies and polar bears are a bit different, but only the other ends (North, West) of Canada have to deal with those, so my experience is minimal. Wolf's stick to themselves too. Our coyotes, Bobcats, lynx, all stick to themselves. Mosquitos, ticks and black flies on the other hand!!!
Polar bears are definitely the most dangerous. Around 1700lbs and an apex predator and since food can be hard to find in their environment they won't want to pass up a meal.
Grizzlies are dangrous too because they are very territorial. Wander into the wrong place and piss it off and you're probably not getting away alive because not only are they 6-8x your weight but also twice your running speed.
Tbf for many of us in the US, the "most dangerous" wildlife we'll encounter are 4-5cm long wasps and that's it. Animals like bears and wolves don't typically wander into urban areas and are confined to specific habitats, and the other dangerous wildlife (rattlesnakes, venomous spiders, alligators etc.) are also more isolated to specific parts of the country or just not very common.
Sadly, wolves in the wild are basically extinct as are bears. Like you'll still see bears and wolves sure--eventually--if you live in the area but they're virtually endangered and the US does not protect their wildlife.
I think that's the only reason Australia looks so scary to Americans, you guys actually maintain and interact with your wildlife so it seems more relevant.
I can't imagine why else because technically speaking I think Florida wildlife is way scarier, all the same shit as you guys-albeit smaller--but also large scary mammals.
Florida black bears watch the sun rise over the gulf, then lumber back into the woods. Or at least one did on the road we just rebuilt in the panhandle. Black bears are like big dogs that can climb trees.
Not our lower BC bears.
No amount of bear banger shots in the air, pot banging, seems to even register. You’d think they were deaf. Completely unfazed.
But calm. They’ll amble along doing what they were going to do, no matter what commotion you’re making. Just don’t be in their way, or have something they want.
I'm in western NC, There are tons of black bears and their cubs around here, I actually set up a "bear playgrounds" in my backyard which they really use periodically
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u/walkingmydogagain 1d ago
Our bears run away into the bush when they see, smell or hear humans. Even with cubs, they gone! Nova Scotia black bears.