Okay, now I'm looking. Deer was correct. I left out mosquitoes (even though I was thinking about mosquitoes! I feel like cheating and adding mosquitoes to my list). Ticks was correct. Bees was correct. Bats and spiders were wrong. The final category is bears, wolves and cougars, and I must say I considered bears and wolves but decided against it, in part because of the "Maybe not what you think," but also because I can't remember ever reading about a bear or wolf attack in Wisconsin. You think of the big predators when you're out in the wilder places, but when do they ever get anywhere near you? It's those pesky ticks, waiting on the tip of every leaf, that will get you.
The threats to humans from Wisconsin's largest wild predators are, statistically speaking, extremely low.Yeah, so why are they on the list?
The last recorded injury to a human from a bear was in June 2017 when a man sustained a bite to the thigh in Florence County.That said! I'll that-said you. You said, "Maybe not what you think." That said, you shouldn't have put bears, wolves, and cougars on the list. Did you check bats and spiders? Hmm?! I'm checking.
"Most of these bear/human interactions are a result of dog/bear interaction and the human rushes in to save their dog," said USDA's Hirchert. "An actual predatory action towards a human from a bear is extremely rare in Wisconsin."
There has been no wolf or cougar attack on a human in Wisconsin in modern history, according to USDA records.
That said, the big animals rightfully elicit an abundance of caution.
Well... 2 brown recluse spiders have been found in Wisconsin in the last quarter century.
As for bats: "The last four cases of human rabies in Wisconsin occurred in 1959, 2000, 2004 and 2010. All four Wisconsin cases acquired the disease from infected bats." The thing about bats is that they can get in your house and you have to deal with it as if the bat carried the horrific disease. You're never lying in bed and suddenly think There's a bear in the house! and spring into action. I mean, I know it has happened....
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How many times in the recorded history of the North American continent have wolf attacks against humans been documented? Such attacks are so rare as to be almost non-existent. Wolves are no threat to humans.
They are a threat to livestock, but that's different.
Last year I was bitten twice by brown recluse spiders in Illinois. Hurt like a bastard both times and it took about six months before the marks went away, after first growing alarmingly large. Fortunately the wound did not necroticize.
It sounded like the Bear used the microwave on some leftovers.
Top 5 Wisconsin wildlife risks to humans?
Rabid Badgers didn't make the list?!?
Are bugs considered wild life?
We're having a bad tick season in New Hampshire. I've been here 20 years, and before this year have acquired maybe three ticks. I'm up to three already this year. This is also the first year that I've seen deer ticks. Previously they've all been dog ticks.
Aggressive deer fatally attacks [9 pound] dog in Shoreview backyard as owner watches in horror
The text and still pictures accompanying this video are 100% pure UK-style fake news, but what kind of animal is it? It looks like a bear, or maybe a wild boar, but with a long cougar tail...
Lumping together bears, wolves and cougars seems wrong. After all, they didn't create an "insects" category for mosquitoes and bees. The government plays the same silly game, creating a category for Hispanic that contains a number of diverse groups and another catch-all for Asian and Pacific Islanders. It's the taxonomy, stupid.
Ticks and Lyme disease are a real problem in Wisconsin. My youngest granddaughter is undergoing a round of doxycycline because the tick that bit her tested positive for Lyme. Family friends’ kids have had full blown Lyme symptoms. Any pet that goes outdoors better have on Frontline or something similar. My sister’s little dog had a really bad case of Lyme disease and could barely walk.
I thought badgers were a thing in Wisconsin. I've always heard not to screw with a badger.
aren't ALL bats rabid? Aren't They ALL actively trying to murder us? Not only that, but through their lawyers, bats have closed down Many public caves. Caves that belong to US; that WE Pay for?
How many dollars have bats EVER contributed to Cave Maintenance?
I'll give you a hint; it rhymes with Not a Damn Red Cent
Manbearpig!
Did they include the dire wolf? One of those comes along, it going to be a problem for you.
Roughcoat needs to compare notes with Kenton Carnegie. Oh! That’s right, he can’t because Kenton was killed and partially eaten by a pack of wolves only 600 yards from where he and his colleagues were camping in Saskatchewan. This attack was documented in an issue of Sports Illustrated in late 2008. The thing that registered so strongly with me was that a tracker determined that one wolf had circled behind young Carnegie well before the actual attack, to block any possibility of a return to safety.
“Rare” does not equal “never.”
@Inga, I hope your granddaughter responds well to treatment.
Last fall I was cleaning up the garage and found myself looking at the largest black widow spider I’ve ever seen (not to mention the only one I’ve ever seen) on the back of a box I was moving. Wiki says that they max out at a body length of one half inch and this one was all of that, maybe larger. Shiny black and after I killed it I saw the red mark on the bottom of its abdomen. The fact that the garage is attached to the house is some cause for concern. Yeah, I would include spiders.
I am not far from Skyline Drive and a couple years ago my son and a bunch of his friends were going camping at a park campground. However at a much earlier date some idiot had planted apple trees in the area and the campsite was infested — there’s no better word! — with black bears eating apples and making a nuisance of themselves. As the group arrived at the campsite the park rangers were trying to coax a bear out of the women’s bathroom & shower facility. Can you imagine being on the toilet and a black bear saunters in?
@tim, if you are going to include the dire wolf then you have to include saber tooths and American lions. Not to mention short-faced bears.
Those Wisconsin cougars are wusses. Their California cousins attack people frequently and kill some on occasion. That said, my home and neighborhood back up to the brushline of the Verdugo Hills (just 10 miles to downtown LA) and over the last 5 years mountain lions have killed (and in one case eaten) German Shepherd sized dogs within 2 miles of my home. So I worry more about my dog than myself. Along the San Gabriel mountain range the most frequent animal injury is rattlesnake bites. The emergency rooms have a saying "Tequila, testosterone and twenties--will yield rattlesnake bites". Young men who should know better like to play with or hassle rattlers. It happens every summer. That's why all the local emergency rooms stock anti-venins.
I have developed a very sporatic allergy to beef which the doctors are attributing to ticks. Very odd as I eat beef maybe once a week and only develop an reaction about once or twice a year and from a variety of sourced meat.
We have rattlesnakes here but have not seen one in the 5 years we've been here but I do most of the clearing in cool to cold weather. The property was once known as Rattlesnake Ridge, a fact that I forgot to tell my city girl wife before we purchased it. I almost grabbed what turned out to be a milk snake while clearing some weeds after we just moved in. I ran to the house screaming like a girl as I mistook it for a copperhead. Pro tip - Look at the eyes and head shape if you have the presence of mind.
“@Inga, I hope your granddaughter responds well to treatment.”
Thanks Big Mike, but she never came down with Lyme. She was bitten, they removed the tick and then quickly sent it away to be tested for Lyme, which came back positive for Lyme. They give Doxycycline as a prophylactic as well as a treatment for full blown Lyme.
Cows didn't make the list? A tipping cow is a massive bludgeon, that puts autonomous vehicles and persons at risk.
That said, we need more cowbell.
How to deal with a pesky bear.
Inga, glad you caught the Lyme disease in time. It got going on the children of several friends in Virginia back before doctors realized Lyme had reached Virginia and they had a terrible time.
Bears, cougars and wolves are slowly spreading south into more populated areas. On a old New England farm we go to, bears and cougars have been sighted in the last three years where there had been none for fifty or more years. I saw the bear myself. Everyone thinks there's going to be a first attack in fifty, sixty or seventy years rather soon. But it would be wrong to cut down trees or get a gun. It would be specieist to make sure the wolf, bear or cougar is the one who runs. So, what to do?
Definitely the pre-venisons here in NW MT. We have ALL of the large mammalian US predators here (including, in the last decade or two, both brown bears and gray wolves). But the mammal that, by far, kills the most people here are the lowly deer. Not too bad this time of year (baby geese are, by far, the bigger traffic hazard). But come early fall, when the young are fully mobile, I can’t drive downtown a mile away without stopping for them. Esp nearing dusk. They seem to know that you can’t legally hunt w/I the city limits, so congregate in town, in herds nearing double digits. But those aren’t the dangerous ones, because the speed limit is 25. A couple miles either way out of town, and it jumps to 70. You see a number of white crosses along the highway. Those aren’t for the deer killed, but, rather, mostly for the humans the deers killed (if a human dies, almost assuredly the dear also died - they don’t have airbags and seatbelts like we do).
Back in PHX, it was a brown recluse that almost killed my partner’s ex. He, being manly, refused to go to the doctor. Luckily, he had a good friend who was a doctor, and she talked into coming over. And kept coming over several times a day, until her ex got over it. This is a guy who has most of those predators, as well as moose, elk, and deer on his ranch, down the road from us here, and it was a spider that almost killed him.
At least Wisconsin doesn't have to worry about sharks.
The bear is the ursine Kramer. "What, they don't have any Dijon mustard in their fridge? How could they not have any Dijon mustard in their fridge?"
The way that bear was bending over when the alarm was going off, I expected it to stand up with a pan of cookies in its paws.
I was working the call in Florence County when the bear bite came in, the gentleman got between a mom and her cubs, with their back against a river. They were up form Madison doing a bird or wildlife count, and he basically got bit in the ass. Please, if your from the Madison area and decide to prance around the northwoods with binoculars and nets, be aware our bears now have a taste for Madison liberals, their fatty , succulent asses are a treat.
That said, we need more cowbell.
Only if the oysters are blue!
By far the greatest danger is the Democrat Party and its members.
Big Mike, if you are on the toilet when a bear walks in, you are probably going to be glad to be sitting there.
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