How common is it for Americans to encounter dangerous wild animals in small towns or remote areas?

33 comments

  1. Growing up we had the occasional black bear….just fire a round or two into the air and they scare off easily.

    Now GEESE on the other hand, f*!cking terrorists.

  4. In Florida, you don’t even need to be in a small town or a remote area to encounter an alligator. Most of them aren’t dangerous and avoid humans, but when they learn NOT to avoid humans they’re very dangerous.

  5. You can encounter dangerous animals in not small or remote towns.  

    The area in and around metro Atlanta has the occasional black bear, coyotes, snakes. 

  6. I live in a pretty normal looking neighborhood, but it’s surrounded by national forest and BLM land. We frequently get bears coming through at night raiding trash cans and neighbors ring cameras pick up mountain lions every so often. Last year I came home and some neighborhood kids were at the base of a tree in the playground, so I stopped and looked up. Mama bear and two cubs were treed. I scolded the boys and told them to get out of there if they want to keep their faces. What I’m more worried about than anything is working on the garden and I forget to check before reaching somewhere and get bit by a black widow spider. We have a lot of those.

  7. Saw a black bear walking through my in-laws yard in NY state about an hour from NYC. When I lived in Louisiana I saw a several venomous snakes and a few alligators.

  8. I’ve seen a few black bears in my life, but they’re honestly more afraid of us. In my experience, aggressive birds are far worse 😂

  9. There are plenty of dangerous animals in my neck of the woods. Moose scare me the most and i have had one scary incident thus far. Bears, mountain lions, elk, rattlesnakes are much less concerning to me. I have a shit ton of black widows by my house but they really aren’t very dangerous though. I love them.

  10. Coyotes, bobcats, and bears where I live. I’m not in a remote area but also those animals try to avoid people so we see each other and go on about our business

  12. Eh. Common-ish. Depends where you’re at.

    Places with bears sometimes they’ll come around and fuck with your trash.

    I’ve spent a fair amount of time in areas with mountain lions and bears and snakes and stuff. Like they *exist*, but it’s not necessarily commonplace to have a confrontation with something.

  13. Even in my county (~280,000 people) there’s still cougar and bear sightings fairly often. My sister used to work at a school where they’d have to lock down sometimes because of bears and cougars walking through the campus, and we’ve had them in our area which is in the suburbs. Plus there’s always coyotes. But we don’t have many snakes or anything like that, so that’s nice.

  14. Pretty common in some of the places where I used to live out west. They’re just part of rural life though, not usually a big deal. Unless of course you find yourself face to face with a pissed off moose or bison, then you should be afraid!

  15. This is going to greatly depend on where in the US you are. In Alabama, you’re very unlikely to come across anything dangerous that’s bigger than a snake. We have alligators, but they are only going to be found near water in the southern half of the state (and the closer you get to the Gulf of Mexico). We have some black bears, but there aren’t many of them. An occasional panther/cougar wanders in from Florida, but there’s no known native population of them in Alabama.

  16. Had coyotes in my neighborhood growing up, and they’d scare the crap out of me every time they started howling out of nowhere, but they (and wolves) aren’t dangerous except to pets. In the Midwest they’re a lot bigger than you think, though – apparently they breed with wolves.

  17. For this week we have had the following animals in my yard: chipmunk, squirrel, rabbit, fox, deer. There are also a bunch of brown birds that I don’t know how to identify.  In the past we have also had turkey and pheasant in my yard.

    In my town there are also bears and mountain lions. Last year while outside, a mountain lion made its presence known by screeching at us, we ran to our car. 

    I live in suburban NJ.

  18. Deer are the most dangerous animals in my part of the country. A gaggle of Canada geese with babies are no joke.

  19. I think it’s going to be very dependent on where they live. The US is huge and we have woodlands, volcanos, desserts, mountains, flat plains, lakes, seas and oceans, etc.

  20. What’s a “dangerous animal” to you?

    White-tailed deer kill more people in the US than any other animal and they’re near ubiquitous, even in major cities you’ll see them. They cross roads and cause accidents by the thousand.

    I’ve seen coyotes and black bears in the suburbs of Seattle. Snakes are everywhere, I had copperheads in my yard in the city in my last home.

    In Florida you can assume alligators are in ANY waterway.

    Animals are everywhere man, only someplace like Manhattan is cut off enough from the environment to not be affected by them on a regular basis…and there’s plenty of raccoons and all sorts of other stuff there too.

  21. A lady in Cincinnati called the cops to report a tiger on Martin Luther King near the U.C. campus on Wednesday. Nearly 3 dozen police showed up and thought she was on drugs until some students called the police to report the same exact sighting. If it’s out there it’s still on the loose. I ain’t peeing off my back porch at midnight any time soon

  22. We had a mountain lion hanging out behind the Tractor Supply in town not long ago and several sighting of black bear in my immediate area in the past month.

  23. Even in the suburbs I’ve seen venomous snakes and coyotes. It’s pretty rare though unless you specifically go out looking for them.

  24. I have a bear that wanders through the yard every so often, I can hear coyotes in the field almost every night, we have occasional bobcats in the area which can and will kill small pets, and deer, while not aggressive, can still be dangerous. So, frequently.

    Edit: Forgot to mention the snakes. We do get them occasionally as well. And the locals. They’re basically wild animals.

  25. “Dangerous” deeply depends on location.
    Wild animal encounters are quite commmon. I live on the edge of the suburbs and I see deer or wild turkeys most days, shoot, there were a few deer in my yard yesterday.

  26. You aren’t asking about cities, but we do have foxes, wolves, and coyotes sometimes, *usually* just in the outskirts of the city, but plenty of people live there too.

    Also a peacock escaped from the zoo once. I giggled at the time, but we quickly learned that those fuckers can be aggressive, and their talons are sharp.

  27. I live in the 10th largest city in America and the 5th largest metro area. There are dangerous wild animals in town. Coyotes, rattlesnakes, scorpions, spiders, mountain lions, javalina, heck even the wild donkeys that hang out around Lake Pleasant can be dangerous if you try to get too close.

  28. Here in Massachusetts I have Black bear in my yard weekly. Lots of bobcats and coyotes and fox. None of those are dangerous. I don’t always see them but we pick them up on the house security cams and it pings our phone.

    Probably the things we are most cautious about is rabies and ticks, although there’s 2 mama bears that walk through with her cubs right now, so I have been telling my kid to make some noise before he goes into the yard and tell my pizza delivery guy to beep the horn a couple times before he gets out of the car.

  29. Fairly common, but with regional differences.

    First let’s start with small predators. Bobcats, foxes, and coyotes. They will run from humans, but will venture into suburban areas to look for scraps and attack pets. They’re a nuisance everywhere, especially if you have chickens, but they’re only a threat if they’re rabid or cornered.

    Then you’ve got your large ruminants. Elk, deer, and moose. Deer are everywhere, elk and moose you have to go further north. The problem with deer is that they will venture into suburban areas to snack on gardens at night and then get startled and panicky at dawn. I can recall an incident in Iowa City where a deer freaked out and got stuck in a parking garage. Generally not a threat to people, huge threat to cars. Moose however, they will charge humans; they are always angry and do not give a fuck.

    Next you’ve got wolves and black bears. Both are at their most dangerous when they get slightly less afraid of humans to get food. The forest service usually puts animals down that get too friendly. The main problem with bears is them smashing through windows and doors because they smell food.

    And finally, you have gators. Gators are always dangerous. If you are in the south, you should always assume there are gators in the water.

  30. Don’t worry, most people don’t see mountain lions in lion territory. 

    That doesn’t mean they’re rare, it certainly sees you…

  31. We have a coyote pack living in the park across the road. Not too many skunks (thank you, coyotes). A couple mean-spirited crows, and carnivorous rabbits.

    The truly dangerous animals are the Suburbanus Karenis that roam freely looking for unsuspecting service workers and their managers to prey upon.

  32. In Ovando Montana, a woman who was biking through the area and set up her camp in the post office yard was killed by a grizzly bear. You can go to Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, or Grand Teton National Park and you will more than likely encounter an animal that can kill you. Bison, Elk, Bears. Most people in Glacier Park near where I live die from falling off cliffs.

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