INTRODUCTION
Personally, I always thought it was far more sensible to fear bees than sharks. Then I met the beekeeper’s wife who told me that many more people die from strawberry allergies than bee stings. I’ve yet to meet a person who has a phobia about strawberries. But countless people have phobias about spiders and snakes, and such phobias are by no means restricted to highly strung non-scientists. Several prominent zoologists in the United States who specialise in snakes—and freely admit to loving them—count themselves as arachnophobes. This allows them to be sympathetic to ophidiophobes (snake phobics). There are plenty of other animal candidates when it comes to phobias. Still, many humans take a perverse pride in wryly asserting that we are the most dangerous animal of all. As usual, we have inflated our importance in the scheme of things. We are indeed dangerous both to ourselves and to the other animals we share the planet with. But in terms of being the most dangerous, we are humbled by microbes. Billions more people and other animals have been killed by microbial animals than large predator species.
Clearly, then, those animals that act as vectors for viral and bacterial disease pose the greatest threat of all. That is why malarial mosquitoes are ranked as the number one most dangerous animal in the world. Of 400 species of Anopheles mosquitoes, only 30 are considered serious vectors for malaria, but worldwide there are 300 million cases of malaria each year—and 100 million deaths. Generally, though, when people think of deadly and dangerous animals, certain specific groups of larger animals are what spring to mind: bears, sharks, big cats, crocodiles, alligators, wolves are among the usual suspects. The list also includes stingrays, snakes, spiders, scorpions, box jellyfish, stonefish, cone shells and the blue-ringed octopus. These animals are the focus of Deadly Beautiful. They are collected together not because of any zoological similarity—they comprise mammals, reptiles, fish, arachnids—but because they can and have killed humans. And because each of them carries the reputation of being a fearsome and deadly animal.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
Even the most cursory investigation, however, reveals that the reputation of many deadly and dangerous animals far exceeds the actual danger they pose to humans. Here we enter the strange world of statistics. Sharks, for example, kill an average of 50 or 60 people a year worldwide. To put that in perspective, in the early 21st century around 900 people are murdered each year in New York State alone, and that’s down from regular annual highs of around 2500 in the late 1980s to the early 1990s. On the other hand, death—like pregnancy—is an absolute condition. It is hardly a comfort that fewer than one in 100 million people is bitten by a funnel-web spider if you are the relative of somebody who was. Nonetheless, realistic risk assessment is important. Even the most puritanical of us are gamblers—we play the odds every time we get into a car.
Whether you are fearful of—or fascinated by—deadly animals, this book will give you the chance to find out more about this special class of creatures and the way humans deal with them. It will soon become evident that paying attention to dangerous and deadly animals tells us as much about human nature as it does about the animals themselves. Snakes, spiders, scorpions, bears, crocodiles, wolves, lions and tigers populate our mythologies and fables. Sometimes good, sometimes evil, always powerful: these über-animals have a second life in human imagination. They also have a real life on planet Earth. Our responses to the actual animals and the real and exaggerated threats they pose are as wildly varied as the creatures themselves.
USUAL AND UNUSUAL SUSPECTS
Zoologists and amateur naturalists generally have a realistic regard for the dangers associated with the subjects of their studies, together with a high level of curiosity about certain classes of animals—reptilia, for instance—that not infrequently translates into deep affection. For some people, all animals are innately fascinating and have an intrinsic right to exist—and the interest of such people is not lessened because a particular animal possesses the capacity to be deadly to humans. For others, being deadly to humans actually constellates their interest in a particular species. They might start out as hunters and have a conversion experience, putting their considerable knowledge back into the conservation of their erstwhile prey. Some individuals have a compelling attraction to a single species or group of species that amounts to monomania. Depending on how they choose to act this out in the world the results can be a triumph of conservation or a tragedy for the animals, the human, or both. Finally, there are some kinds of human – deadly-animal interactions that are not remotely connected to any earthly realities of animal existence. Members of the Church of Christ with Signs Following take literally the biblical words from Mark 16:17–18 (King James Bible).
Accordingly, the believers drape themselves with deadly snakes in defiance of the secular law of the United States. An interest in the animals themselves is not required—they are merely props for the demonstration of faith.
This book focuses mostly on rehabilitating the reputation of the usual suspects by providing information about their natural history and their place in ecology and conservation. Some of the species featured—elephants and hippopotamuses—may be surprising. Their public images do not generally focus on their fatal capacities, but those who live with or near them are well aware of the threat they can pose to human life. Of course, anything short of an encyclopaedia of dangerous animals is going to have to be very selective about the species included. Here, the basis for selection was the major groups of dangerous animals, and the various ways in which people relate to them. Along the way, however, a motley group of animals presented their credentials as actually or potentially lethal, dangerous or interesting for one reason or another. Although they did not make the final cut, it’s fun to have a brief look at some of these before proceeding to the featured species.
THE RUNNERS-UP
There’s an old Australian curse that runs ‘May all your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny door down’ (may all your domestic poultry ... kick your outside toilet door down!). Maybe it’s because emus are found throughout Australia, or maybe it’s hard to fit the word ‘cassowary’ into a curse, but for my money, this fruit-eating cousin of the emu is larger and flashier. It’s also been deadly on at least one occasion. In April 1926 at Mossman, North Queensland, the unfortunate Phillip McClean paid the ultimate penalty for some youthful foolishness. The sixteen-year-old and his mates were chasing a cassowary ( Casuarius casuarius) when the youth fell. The scimitar middle claw of the cassowary caught his jugular vein. Most cassowary – human encounters don’t end in death, but the possibility exists. Especially now that ecotourism in Queensland attracts people who are looking for a close encounter with wildlife, and hand-feeding cassowaries is a feature. Tourists and locals regularly report being attacked or frightened by hissing cassowaries, and a few dogs have come off the worse for wear in close encounters. Left to their own devices, however, cassowaries are shy, non-aggressive, increasingly rare and in some areas endangered. But they do not take lightly to any perceived threats to their chicks. There are plenty of ways you can die through diseases caught from birds, but the cassowary is a most unusual, if not unique, member of the bird kingdom in that it can cause direct death.
As a born and bred Australian I’m ashamed to admit that it was only while researching this book that I found out our enchanting platypus is actually a venomous animal. Well, the male of the species, at least. Adult males have ankle spurs connected to a venom gland. Although this venom is known to be excruciating to humans, human envenomation (that is, the actual injection of venom) is extremely rare, partly because direct human – platypus encounters are not a feature of everyday life for most of us, and partly because it is thought that the point of the venom is to fight off other males and win the mating wars. The gland is known to be most active in the breeding season.
Another seemingly innocuous animal, the marmot, stands accused of being responsible for countless deaths, albeit indirectly. Rats are commonly acknowledged as the major vector for the spread of the Black Death, which in several waves of plagues devastated Europe and completely changed the path of history in that region. Reservoirs of the infection still exist in many developing countries and cause significant problems there, and even in the United States between ten and twenty people a year contract the disease. Worldwide, the last serious outbreak of bubonic plague was in India in 1994, but proper public health measures meant it was swiftly brought under control.
Marmots are an appealing, squirrelly kind of animal that look either harmless or delicious, depending on your background. In Mongolia the bobac marmot is considered a delicacy. All parts of the animal are eaten bar the armpit, which is said to house the spirit of a dead hunter. Eerie, considering that the marmot was the chief vector for the Yersinia pestis bacterium that causes the bubonic plague, commonly marked by hideous swelling in the armpits of both humans and marmots. Yersinia pestis infects the lungs of bobac marmots. When infected animals cough they spread the bug to fleas, rats and ultimately humans. Inadvertently, then, some have argued that the marmots have an impressive toll of more than one billion human deaths during the great plagues. Marmots would be an animal worth developing a decent phobia about, but they are not widely thought of outside Mongolia.
Other animal species are known to one and all but are not recognised as much of a threat. Unlike sharks, deer seldom feature in people’s nightmares. Unlike mountain lions, cows are unlikely to inspire terror. Ultimately, if there is one repeated theme in this book it is that perceptions of danger are not necessarily rational and frequently bear no relation to the real dangers people are likely to confront. According to a table on the University of Florida’s Shark Alert site, sharks and mountain lions accounted for fewer than one fatality a year each in the United States during the 1990s. On the other hand, deer—those innocent Bambis—topped the list of dangerous animals. On average, during the same period 130 people in the United States died due to deer each year, generally through vehicle collisions. Neither dogs, at eighteen per year, nor snakes, at sixteen, came close. Clearly, nobody is suggesting that deer are particularly aggressive, and as herbivores they are hardly classifiable as predators on humans. It is just good to put things in perspective. As the old saying goes, if you hear hoof beats think horses, not zebras.
And speaking of horses, they—along with cattle—merit attention, because a number of human deaths are attributable to both species. Dr Ricky Lee Langley and veterinarian Dr James Lee Hunter researched work-related deaths involving animals in the United States over five years from 1992 to 1997. Although animals were only a factor in 1 per cent of workplace fatalities, this still represents the loss of 350 lives. Cattle top the list at 142, closely followed by horses. Two species that aren’t native to the United States—tigers and elephants—killed five and three people, respectively. Amazingly, snakes were not even mentioned separately, but probably accounted for at least some of the ten deaths listed under ‘Other’. In many cases it seems that human fear of dangerous animals is in inverse proportion to the likelihood of being killed by a particular species. A bit like people who are terrified of flying yet happily drive a car!
THE SCIENCE OF NAMING
DANGEROUS AND DEADLY—WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Dangerous: even the word can set pulses racing, but what does it actually mean? For some, danger arouses responses that range from nervousness to blind panic; for others there’s a mysterious allure mixed in with the adrenaline response. It takes all sorts, as they say. Similarly, there are all sorts of ways of looking at the idea of ‘dangerous animals’. For a start, it’s worth noting that the terms ‘deadly’ and ‘dangerous’ may be related, but they are not interchangeable. It is important to untangle them. An animal may possess the capacity to be extremely deadly, but if it lives alone with others of its kind on a remote island or in a remote desert, it can hardly be called dangerous.
An animal that is deadly, and lives where humans live, can rightly be described as dangerous. Even here, though, there is a strong distinction to be made between animal behaviours that are aggressive and those that are defensive. It would seem obvious that the former should be considered more dangerous than the latter, but people’s perceptions are not always accurate. For example, worldwide the image of the rattlesnake is one of great dangerousness, and (unless you live near one) the hippopotamus is likely to be viewed as a wallowing old duffer; yet the rattlesnake is a gentle-natured creature, and the hippopotamus is not. Even the category of aggressive animal divides again into animals that are permanently aggressive and those that have seasons of aggressive behaviour.
Of course, almost anything can be dangerous or toxic, depending on the circumstances. A fly can distract a driver who then drives into a tree and winds up dead—the driver, not the fly. But that’s pretty random, so let’s take a broad look at the more predictable categories of animals that can kill or seriously harm humans, and their modus operandi. A whole range of animals, apart from the hypothetical fly, are involved in fatal car crashes. Most of them, of course, fatal for the animal, not the human. But a significant subsection of collisions causing human death involves large animals, particularly those that move quickly or un-predictably. Kangaroos in Australia, deer in the United States, and bulls wherever they may be are examples. The ubiquitous bull bar attests to this danger. Statistics clearly show that this is not a negligible risk, but even the briefest time on the back roads littered with the rotting carcasses of wildlife will show that fatal outcomes are heavily weighted towards the animal in these encounters.
KEEPING RECORDS
MODUS OPERANDI
It’s clear enough that the modus operandi of dangerous animals divide pretty neatly into physical and chemical means. It must be recognised, though, that in the vast majority of cases, humans are collateral damage—unfortunate or foolhardy enough to encounter a potentially dangerous animal at the wrong place, wrong time! Most of the animals that kill us, even those that do so with remarkable efficiency, have not evolved to specialise in doing so. Venoms are used to anaesthetise or paralyse prey species—such as amphibians and insects, though a smaller number of venomous species favour eating small mammals. (As mentioned above, countless billions of bacteria are accidental avatars of death by disease. In fact some of the nastiest hard-to-heal wounds attributed to venom in snake and spider bite victims are actually the result of extremely infectious microbes introduced whether or not the animal also injects venom.) Some small invertebrates, particularly bees and wasps, can cause fatal allergic reactions in certain individuals. Of course, some classes of venom are among the most efficient death dealers. Various species of spiders, scorpions, snakes, cone shells, stingrays and box jellyfish are all purveyors of venom.
Generally, however, in thinking about deadly animals it is direct body-to-body attack that comes to mind rather than car crashes or microbes—mauling, for example, which includes beating, biting, chewing, clawing, goring and eviscerating. To effectively achieve this on a human an animal has to be pretty big itself, so the key species here are sharks, crocodiles, big cats and bears. (Mind you, rats have been known to kill babies.) If you add crushing, stomping and suffocating to the list you can count in hippopotamuses, cattle, horses, camels, moose, elephants and giant anacondas. In February 2007 an eight-year-old Brazilian boy had a lucky escape from a 5-metre anaconda that had wrapped itself around his neck. Journalist Tales Azzoni wrote that police reports revealed Joaquim Pereira saved his grandson Mateus from the grip of the anaconda by beating the snake with rocks and hacking at it with a knife for half an hour.
Anacondas are obviously a real threat—if you live in their habitat and are vulnerable (by virtue of small stature) to their means of predation. They barely register, however, in the overall picture of deaths caused by venomous snakes or other wild animals. Often it is the commoner domesticated animals, such as dogs, that pose a more significant danger. Domesticated or otherwise, in-season males of more than one species are a danger. Robyn Davidson (whose idiosyncratic pilgrimage with camels across Australia’s deserts was detailed in her book Tracks) has experienced this first hand. If she had any reason to doubt the Afghan cameleer’s advice to ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ when encountering wild bull camels, she was convinced of its wisdom when her own ‘baby’ bull camel, crazy with his first flush of adolescent hormones, just about killed her.
Another flash point for human – animal encounters with these large species is inadvertently preventing a ‘mother and child reunion’. Hell hath no fury like a mother who perceives a threat to her offspring. It is not recommended to get between a bear and her cubs—and the same applies to mothers of most other large mammal species. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. A friend was hiking along a creek bed in the United States, looking down at his feet, concentrating on finding the next stepping stone. He failed to see what he was just about to walk into: coming the other way, also unprepared for the encounter, were a black bear and her cubs. A man of science, he knew full well that this was about as dangerous as it gets. In a moment worthy of a Larson cartoon, both man and mother bear looked at each other for an instant, equally horrified. Then in the same instant the man scaled a cliff, and the bear took to her heels and fled in the opposite direction. It was all the cubs could do to keep up with her. Lucky man; lucky bears. Never forget, though, that the exception only goes to prove the rule!
ENDANGERED
Revealingly, the word danger is embedded in the word ‘endangered’. So many species that humans rightly or wrongly consider a major threat end up on the endangered and critically endangered lists. Crocodiles, sharks, snakes—the list goes on. Sometimes this is through active culling, sometimes through human-caused habitat loss. Sometimes it is a mixture of both factors, as when habitat loss causes more frequent encounters between humans and dangerous species, leading to increased calls to exterminate the animals. It is reasonable to wish to protect human life; but looking at the bigger picture gives a better balance about levels of danger and reasonable measures to deal with them. It is only fair to ask who is more dangerous to whom? An indication of the conservation status of the animals in this book will be based on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as follows.
IUCN CLASSIFICATIONS OF DEGREES OF THREAT
EXTINCT: Species has not been located in the wild during the past 50 years.
ENDANGERED: Species in danger of extinction. Survival is unlikely if the cause of its decline continues.
VULNERABLE: Species believed likely to become endangered in the near future if the cause of its decline continues.
RARE: Species with small world populations that are not at present endangered or vulnerable.
THREATENED: A general term used to describe a species in one of the above categories.
PAYING OUR RESPECTS
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, so goes the song. It’s a good song, a good word. One that bears a little examination because it’s the key concept underlying a sustainable way of relating to dangerous cohabitants of the planet. Sometimes respect is paired with affection, but not always. There are plenty of people on the planet who are besotted with snakes, spiders, sharks and a whole range of creatures that inspire no love in others. It is neither possible nor necessary for everyone to share this infatuation. But we can strive to encourage an attitude of respect for all creatures based on their intrinsic right to be alive and thrive in our shared home on Earth. This does not automatically translate to literally sharing our intimate living space—that can be left to the seriously devoted!
When we are dealing with dangerous creatures, another aspect of the word respect comes into play: a realistic idea of the threat they pose—based on accurate knowledge—which leads to appropriate ways to reduce or avoid the risks. Ignorance and fear are bunkmates, and they frequently raise risk rather than reduce it. In the developed world, the vast majority of snakebites occur because people are persecuting, pestering or handling snakes carelessly. Even less complicit victims of snakebite have often failed to take simple, commonsense precautions based on knowledge of local snake behaviour.
Deadly Beautiful is dedicated to promoting respect for dangerous animals in both senses of the word. These creatures that loom so large in schlock-horror nightmares are frequently hunted to the edge of extinction and beyond. Border disputes can be dealt with very effectively without disrespecting the right of all animals to exist. The knowledge of real risks is presented here to encourage respect and better ways of learning to live together.
THE DAMASCUS AWARDS
Most people have heard of the Darwin Awards—given out, tongue in cheek, to those whose blatant foolishness contributed to their own death, thus ‘removing their genes from the pool’. Not surprisingly, those who mishandle or bait dangerous animals are frequently nominees. Grimly amusing, perhaps, but not very cheerful. The Damascus Awards, on the other hand, are evidence of humanity’s capacity to change and grow, and provide a far more positive view. No gold attaches to winning a Damascus Award, only the satisfaction of giving something back. Invented for this book, the award is of course named for St Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus. It is given to honour those people who started out life as hunters—and sometimes active persecutors—of dangerous species, and ended up using their knowledge to fight for the preservation of their erstwhile enemy. Several chapters of Deadly Beautiful feature at least one winner of a Damascus Award.