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Comment by dboreham | Hacker News Reader

> Wolves are among the few predators that can and will attack humans

Well...I live in a place where we have (in my back yard, except for Bison) all the megafauna present since the ice age. In order of practical danger (most to least), they rank like this: Moose, Bear, Cougar, Snakes, ... Wolves. People are regularly attacked by Moose and fatalities have occurred in the past few decades. People are eaten by bears every few years and injured by bears annually. Cougars present a real danger but they're pretty wary of humans so attacks are more a theoretical risk we hear about from reports concerning mountain bikers in Los Angeles. I never heard of anyone being attacked by a wolf nor anyone being concerned about being attacked by a wolf. Same for Coyotes and Foxes.

I don't hear people suggesting that Moose be killed on sight.

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> Snakes

Virtually every adult killed by snakes in America was asking for it. Rattlesnakes sure as shit know they can't eat humans and would never attempt it. They are named for the mechanism they use to scare us away and bite when that fails. A huge number of rattlesnake bites are to the face or hands because it happens when some moron ignores the rattle and picks up the snake.

Wolves, unlike rattlesnakes do sometimes deliberately attack humans with 'malicious' intent. Rattlesnakes never do.

Rattlesnakes actually don’t rattle that much, they rely a lot on camouflage. Also young ones won’t have fully developed rattles and older ones can lose them.

They will often strike without warning. It’s important to pay attention where you put your hands and feet when you’re in rattlesnake country.

They hide first, but will rattle when they think that has failed. Sometimes they bite first without rattling, particularly when startled, but they are less likely to use venom in those circumstances and those bites will generally be to the ankles or legs. Snakes only have self-preservation in mind when it comes to humans, never predation. They hid because they're scared, and they bite because they're scared. Their venom is meant primarily for catching meals but they'll use it in self defence when pressed.

In the past 20 years in America, 30 men have been killed by snakes, vs 6 women. Dudes trying to be macho by fucking with snakes explains most of this gap; many of them were bitten on the hands and the circumstances of many of the cases make it pretty clear the snake was being fucked with. Only a handful of incidents were likely genuine accidents.

Yeah, totally agree, no doubt macho men will try to play stupid games. That's not a snake problem.

I was bitten on the ankle as a teenager (luckily as you said, it didn't use venom), at the time I was pretty surprised it was silent.

One theory is that humans ate a bunch of these animals to extinction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_animals...

(The Holocene is the period after the glaciers last receded)

I'm not sure what constitues megafauna but I believe the two most deadly animals in North America are honey bees and deer. Bees beacuse of alergic reaction/anaphylactic shock after a sting and deer because they tend to dart in front of cars and motorcycles.

~100 lbs body weight is one rule of thumb.

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