The Sting of the Assassin (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine October 2001

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The Sting of the Assassin (Cont.)

WHEN IT COMES TO predatory animals, humans have little to fear but themselves. We kill one another at a rate of more than one million per year, mostly wartime casualties. The second-deadliest threat is snakes, which kill over 100,000 people annually, followed by crocodiles (960), and tigers (740). The much-feared shark falls far down the list—only about seven human victims annually worldwide—making it a lightweight compared to the ostrich, which when cornered can kick viciously with hammerlike feet and sharp talons and kills some 14 people every year. As for the ferocious grizzly bear, it ranks about the same as mustelids (weasels, badgers, skunks, and the like), which kill an average of four humans a year, primarily pet ferrets attacking unattended babies. A couple more reassuring statistics: In the United States and Canada, you have more to fear from moose (six deaths per year) than any other creature except snakes (12). And the most likely place in the States to be attacked by an alligator (three deaths between 1992 and 1998) is not deep in some swamp, but on a golf course.

Very few animals stalk humans as prey, and those that do, such as the infamous man-eating tigers of India and lions of Africa, tend to be individual animals—typically outcast young males searching for new territory—that lose fear of humans and develop a taste for their flesh. Animals, for the most part, attack humans only when they are surprised or feel threatened or when defending their offspring. Snakes kill far more humans worldwide than any other animal, but as one authority states, they "have never been shown to attack without provocation, despite lengthy historical commentary to the contrary." Most bites occur in tropical countries when a rural villager unwittingly disturbs a snake, often by stepping on it in the dark. In the United States, by contrast, many victims are under the influence of alcohol or drugs and, in the words of another expert, are "messing with" the snakes. Researchers in Alabama have noted a statistical drop in venomous snakebites among adult men when University of Alabama or Auburn University football games are televised, presumably because the men are ensconced in their TV rooms.

There are no statistics showing that one region of the world is more dangerous than another in terms of animal attacks. Still, one can speculate. It would seem that parts of Africa inhabited by big game would make the list, as would the snake-infested Amazon Basin and parts of Southeast Asia such as Vietnam's Mekong Delta, where in one area studied by researchers, cobras, kraits, and vipers kill more than 2,700 people each year.

On the list, too, one expects, would be the coast of Australia and the region around Cape York Peninsula, which is home to an assortment of sharks, venomous snakes, poisonous fish, and the deadly saltwater crocodile. Of all those faunal hazards, one creature, despite its diminutive size, towers above the rest. This is a graceful-looking jellyfish not much larger than a grapefruit, known by the scientific name Chironex fleckeri, generically called a box jellyfish. As writer Bill Bryson noted in his recent best-selling book about Australia, In a Sunburned Country, Chironex is perhaps the most lethal venomous creature on earth. At least 63 Chironex deaths have been recorded along the coast of northern Australia since 1900, though many more deaths have probably gone undocumented through other parts of the South Seas. By some estimates, the venom of a Chironex can kill a human in less than a minute.

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