What Local Animal Are You Most Afraid Of?

[Mother Dragon]

Hey, folks, how did this get hijacked into a carnivore vs. herbivore argument? Peace!

This brought to mind something even more frightening. Maybe we need to fear zealots, no matter what their stance, most of all. And no, I'm not NOT NOT calling you zealots but we all know there are a lot of them out there espousing radical and terrifying causes. They are each dangerous in their own way, far more dangerous than any animal. They scare me most of all.

Now, back to local creatures that scare you.

Someone said mosquitoes and I'm all for the eradication of those. The person who said small things don't matter never spent the night in a dark room with a buzzing mosquito.

Fire ants are high on my list of nasty critters. On the other hand, they seem to be the only thing that eats fleas. I HATE fleas!

I'm not too fond of bats, either. Yes, I know they eat mosquitoes, but once you have one in your bedroom and have to have rabies shots for you and boosters for your cats, they lose a lot of appeal.

 

[arouetta]

Someone said mosquitoes and I'm all for the eradication of those. The person who said small things don't matter never spent the night in a dark room with a buzzing mosquito.

But....but....but mosquitoes are keeping aliens from eradicating us since they believe mosquitoes are an endangered species.

 

[surya]

I suppose it was off topic, but that's how conversations evolve sometimes. I just want to say that marginalizing people who have a different opinion by calling them zealots is not cool.

 

[Mother Dragon]

I didn't call anyone here a zealot. Not NOT NOT! I spoke of those zealots who are wreaking terror on innocent people. Zealots like the Unabomber. Zealots like the local woman who beat her 14 year old daughter to death to cleanse her of the devil. Zealots like those who demand that all women and girls undergo genital mutilation.

I definitely approve of respectful debate. If your belief cannot stand up to questioning, it probably isn't valid anyway. I spent many years on debate teams and learned to see both sides of an issue, despite holding strong feelings about one side of it.

Now, on with the show.

But....but....but mosquitoes are keeping aliens from eradicating us since they believe mosquitoes are an endangered species.

Don't ever let them come to south Texas. The mosquitoes here are huge and routinely carry off calves and the occasional milch cow. A small airport pumped a thousand gallons of jet fuel into one by mistake. Like a bat flight, they blacken the sky at dusk. Poor folks shoot them for meals. It takes about a half-dozen to feed a family of eight.

 

[surya]

Bats creep me out. Killer bee's are scary too.

 

[arouetta]

Don't ever let them come to south Texas. The mosquitoes here are huge and routinely carry off calves and the occasional milch cow. A small airport pumped a thousand gallons of jet fuel into one by mistake. Like a bat flight, they blacken the sky at dusk. Poor folks shoot them for meals. It takes about a half-dozen to feed a family of eight.

I can sympathize. While Oregon didn't have huge mosquitoes, we had these swarms that were crazy. An 8 foot tall mass of blackness was pretty common in the summer. I moved out of the middle of the woods and into a city on the opposite coast where spraying was done regularly. The times they said that the mosquito population was at super high levels and people talked about how bad the mosquitoes were at those times, I was like "What mosquitoes? Those ones? There's maybe ten of them!"

 

[Willowy]

The mosquitoes here are terrible in the summer. I always say that because they die off in the winter, they have to make up for it while they have time! Some people call them the South Dakota state bird . Whenever we go to Florida for vacation, I'm actually surprised by how few bugs I see.

I like bats, they're cool. I suppose the fact that you don't notice a bat bite is the scary part.

There is a coyote dead on the highway 4/10 of a mile away from my house :/. Hmph, I don't want coyotes at my place. I hope it was just a young one looking for new territory, or at least I hope that coyote family doesn't have a taste for cats. They can have all the rabbits they want. I know the humans and the cats are the invasive species here but then again so are the coyotes. We're supposed to have wolves but the cows come first so the wolves had to go. I'm sure they'd eradicate the coyotes too, if they could, but coyotes are too smart.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

I have a mosquito "smiley" --

 

[Mother Dragon]

I'm not sure whether to say "cute!" or "ICK"!

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

Oh, definitely ICK.

 

[surya]

The bats here fly really low and close to your head. I'm scared of rabies. Plus I don't want to turn into a vampire.

 

[LTS3]

I saw a coyote this morning not 20 feet from me I was heading to the bus stop and saw a pointy something in a grassy ditch. I thought it was a bunny but then a whole coyote came out of the ditch and trotted along. I stayed as far as I could away from the coyote and moved slowy. I don't think it noticed me but I didn't want to risk it.

 

[Willowy]

The bats here fly really low and close to your head. I'm scared of rabies. Plus I don't want to turn into a vampire.

Vapirism is fortunately a VERY rare condition. It's been nearly eradicated in this country.

There are just so many misconceptions about bats. Bats who fly close to you are just trying to get the bugs buzzing around your head. They're very good with their sonar so they won't make contact with you. . .well, normally; if you start flailing you may whack one. A bat who has rabies will not be flying around and doing normal bat things---it's the downed bats you have to worry about. Don't touch one that's where you can touch it; that's not normal. They aren't more likely to have rabies than any other animal, actually less likely than most. The risk is---if you get bitten by a skunk, you KNOW it, and you get rabies shots, but you don't always know when you get bitten by a bat because they're so small. They are extremely beneficial to the environment, and all species are protected by federal law. Which probably wouldn't happen if they were flying rabies machines .

Rabies Info

 

[kittens mom]

I have a mosquito "smiley" -- View attachment 186043

I just smashed my screen with the mouse. We're at 6500+ feet seldom see a skeeter .

 

[kittens mom]

I saw a coyote this morning not 20 feet from me I was heading to the bus stop and saw a pointy something in a grassy ditch. I thought it was a bunny but then a whole coyote came out of the ditch and trotted along. I stayed as far as I could away from the coyote and moved slowy. I don't think it noticed me but I didn't want to risk it.

That's what I mean. Coyotes used have a meltdown if you seen them. And yes the coyote knew you were there.

 

[kittens mom]

I suppose it was off topic, but that's how conversations evolve sometimes. I just want to say that marginalizing people who have a different opinion by calling them zealots is not cool.

I see it as part of the conversation. Someone should mention that deer aside from attacking windshield of passing cars are dangerous. Seen a video of a little girl sitting down hand feeding wild deer in their yard.
Bears scare me because they are not part of the landscape here. There are no natural resources for them. It's people stuff. This last bear bothers me because we have a wet spring and no fires to displace them from the mountains. If this was a youngster looking for territory were in for a long summer.

 

[arouetta]

The bats here fly really low and close to your head. I'm scared of rabies. Plus I don't want to turn into a vampire.

That reminds me of a study scientists did that I found funny. Vampire bats in South America swoop down onto the ground, crawl up to cattle, and sip off their legs. But scientists wondered how they managed to eat prior to the arrival of cattle. The obvious answer was that they chased down smaller.....um.....prey? Hosts? Victims? So they put a bunch of vampire bats on little treadmills to measure their run speed and those suckers can run 3 miles an hour. That's really darned fast for a little creature. And the scientists said if they had bigger treadmills they probably could have run faster.

But I had to laugh when I read about it because bats running on little treadmills??? That's like the study on wild field mice which found that all mice love a wheel, because the little wild field mice would run on one left out for hours. They started by putting food on the wheel to get the mice to come close to it and once the field mice figured out what it did, they loved it.

 

[arouetta]

Bears scare me because they are not part of the landscape here. There are no natural resources for them. It's people stuff. This last bear bothers me because we have a wet spring and no fires to displace them from the mountains. If this was a youngster looking for territory were in for a long summer.

I'd worry, but I don't think I'd worry overly much. When I was a teen is when we started having the cougars show up. They hadn't been there in decades. There were no human or domesticated animal attacks. In fact my next door neighbors left their teeny little dog out every night, one of those little dogs that my cats outweigh, and suddenly he started barking up a storm every night. Every single night, for like two weeks. I don't know what happened that had a professional tracker come out, but he found cougar tracks. Based on the lay (what tracks were over what) the cougar was walking up to the dog every single night but wasn't turning it into a snack, it'd turn around and walk away.

Yes, the neighbors brought the dog in for the night after that information was discovered.

 

[kittens mom]

I'd worry, but I don't think I'd worry overly much. When I was a teen is when we started having the cougars show up. They hadn't been there in decades. There were no human or domesticated animal attacks. In fact my next door neighbors left their teeny little dog out every night, one of those little dogs that my cats outweigh, and suddenly he started barking up a storm every night. Every single night, for like two weeks. I don't know what happened that had a professional tracker come out, but he found cougar tracks. Based on the lay (what tracks were over what) the cougar was walking up to the dog every single night but wasn't turning it into a snack, it'd turn around and walk away.

Yes, the neighbors brought the dog in for the night after that information was discovered.

This has been rangeland for decades probably as early as 1880. There is nothing here for a bear to live on but livestock or other warm blooded critters taking their trash out at night. I'm not horrified hiding in the house and because of my neighbors loose nasty dogs I already carry bear spray. It just usually takes an event to see them move into this area.

 

[kashmir64]

The bats here fly really low and close to your head. I'm scared of rabies. Plus I don't want to turn into a vampire.

I remember when I lived in the Valley and worked downtown. They were cleaning out the Mexican Freetail bats from the parking garage. One of the workers showed me one in the palm of his hand. OMG was it cute. That tiny little reddish fox face was soooo adorable. But then, I think most snakes are gorgeous.

What I hate are what we call cedar gnats. Tiny flying teeth. Small enough to go right through your screen, but leave chunks out of your skin. Windows must be shut at dusk.
Ever see the movie The Langoliers? Kind of like those, but smaller.