While vicious alligator and shark attacks get all the press, the Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger reports there has been a bigger, albeit more unsuspecting killer in the Sunshine State over the past few years. That animal is actually 300 times more dangerous, despite an innocent face and bushy white tail.
Yes, we are talking about deer.
An average of 130 fatal vehicle collisions with deer are recorded in the United States each year, according to stats tracked by the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. By comparison, there was less than one shark attack and one gator attack per year, on average, throughout the 1990s.
George Burgess, director of the Shark File, is in charge of keeping such statistics so that widely-feared shark attacks are kept in perspective.
"It's really nice to see an animal other than sharks get abused for a change," said Burgess, who added that the news media's sensationalized coverage of three recent fatal gator attacks reminded him of past fatal shark attacks getting blown out of proportion.
Not surprisingly, experts say that humans have little to fear from most wildlife. There have been no reported fatal attacks from bears in Florida this year, and no reports of residents contracting rabies from an animal bite in decades. Only six of the 49 species of snakes in Florida are known to be venomous and potentially deadly.
"People tend to blow things up and think they're going to get killed, but it doesn't happen that often," said Anni Bladh, a nuisance-animal biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Bladh said most phone calls she gets are from people spotting raccoons in daylight and assuming they're rabid. Alachua County, Fla., has treated only nine people for rabies so far this year (and 38 in 2005) after they were bitten by raccoons and other animals, according to Paul Myers, director of environmental health for the county.
As much as people seem to enjoy worrying, effectiveness of treatment and widespread vaccination of pets has virtually ended rabies deaths among humans.
"The cases are sporadic across the United States," he said.
People have even less to fear from Florida's black bears, which are very shy and have never attacked someone unprovoked in the state. People are advised to keep food inside in order to prevent bears from being drawn to their homes, but at the same time, shouldn't worry about bear attacks.
"Dogs regularly kill people, and we tend to accept that risk," said Walter McCown, a biologist with the wildlife commission who studies the animals.
Snakes are another story. About 150 people are bitten by snakes in Florida each year. On average, one of those bites results in death.
Last year, the Putnam County Fire Marshal, Joe Guidry, shot a diamondback rattlesnake that a neighbor discovered while mowing the grass. He tried to grab the wounded snake and was bitten in the hand, later dying from the poisonous venom at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida.
As a general rule, snakes and other wildlife generally won't attack unless scared and on the defensive, stated Mark Hostetler, a Wildlife Ecology Professor at UF. Rather than panicking unnecessarily, people just need to better understand how to interact with local wildlife.
Most problems are caused by people feeding animals and reducing their fear of humans. As more and more of the land in Florida is developed, increased encounters with wildlife are inevitable. If our only frame of reference on how to react is what we see on television, problems may ensue.
"I call it the Discovery Channel effect," Hostetler said.
People need to understand that wild animals will act wild, and that time would be better spent worrying about how to stop attacks from something much more dangerous. The No. 1 animal that kills humans -- crazy as it sounds -- is other humans. Yet you never hear people panic over that...