This Is America's Deadliest Animal (Hint: It's Not A Shark)
Why Is This Important?
Because if you see one you should probably run in the other direction.
Long Story Short
Deer — not bears, bees, sharks or scorpions — are the animal that kills the most Americans. However, the deaths aren't because of viscious Bambi attacks — most of the fatalities are a result of car accidents.
Long Story
They lurk around America's vast countryside and sometimes make their way into cities. They're cute and furry and have big round eyes. Nope, they aren't bears — deer are America's deadliest animal, as summized by an analysis of CDC data from LCB.
These furry mammals are responsible for an estimated 120 deaths a year, usually due to car crashes rather than attacks. That puts deer up at the top of the list, well above deaths resulting from stinging bugs, dogs, cows, horses and way above sharks, which kill less than one person per year.
The analysis explains that different efforts are being made around the U.S. to control the deer population. “Due to rapid urban development, the deer’s natural habitat is shrinking, causing them to share more space with humans, where they often wander into oncoming traffic and cause car crashes," says the analysis. "Deer-related crashes are a growing problem across the country that has led to sterilization programs and culling in the Northeast, even in the star-studded Hamptons.”
Another way humans are trying to deal with the deer population is byreintroducing cougars back into the wild.
Worldwide, though, deer aren't much of a threat. The animal that kills the most humans globally is the mosquito, with an estimated 755,000 fatalities (usually malaria) — surpassing the second deadliest animal — us — who kill 475,000 fellow humans a year. Other extremely dangerous animals are the Asian Cobra (50,000 deaths), kissing bug (11,000) and the hippopotomaus, which is the world's deadliest mammal, which kills 2,900 people a year, mostly in Africa.
So should you be worried about being killed by an animal if you live in America? No, probably not. The odds of any animal killing you in the U.S. are one in nearly 1.4 million.
