SWMBO sent me this article a while back on which animals are most likely to kill you. It was written in response to the shark attacks that happened of the NC coast. Since it was written, Jaws music has been playing rather routinely up and down our coast as our selachimorpha foes have taken up the challenge laid down by this article and their land bound cohorts to kill and maim as many of us as possible.
However, as the article points out, the sharks have a long way to go to catch up to their bovine peers as cows kill 20 people per year while sharks can only manage one.
I even learned recently it’s no bueno to be on the wrong end of an angry cow. So what other dangerous critters do we have on the farm.
Venomous snakes kill 6 people per year. Copper heads, water moccasins. Yep, got them.
Spiders kill 7 people per year.
Took this pic the other day. Spiders, check.
Non-venomous arthropods. 9 people per year. Yep, got ’em in spades.
Dogs kill 28 people per year. There is a dog in every house on the farm, two in most of them. Yeah, certain death there.
Other mammals kill 52 people per year. I think we have at least one of all the mammals that are native to NC. Spork even thinks he saw a black bear one time. Check.
Bees, wasps, and hornets kill 58 people per year.
We have four active bee hives we manage, plus native bees all over the farm. We also had a graduate student come down to study and collect our wasps, since we had plenty.
So if you go to the beach, you could be the one person who dies each year from a shark attack. If you come to the farm, you could be one of the 180 people who die from bees, cows, dogs, or whatever else you find on a farm.
Run!