Super random, but as an Aussie who clearly cares a lot about nature, how do you feel about the stereotype that “Australia is full of terrifying animals and insects that want to kill you”?
Tbh I mostly find it pretty tedious because it's just not true. Horses and cows in Australia cause the most fatalities which is true pretty much anywhere you have horses and cows. Even if you adjust for livestock, we still aren't anywhere near the top countries for animal-related fatalities even when adjusted for population (India holds the honour).
I think there's three reasons why the myth has been spread so much is that
a) Australians like to take the piss out of foreigners and it's entertaining to many to watch foreigners buy it, from drop bears to clock spiders - like that can be frustrating but it is a national Australian pastime to just say the most wildly outrageous things to people (including each other) and see how far we can get away with something (let's never forget that "I'm not here to fuck spiders" started as a Tumblr post where someone said 'I bet I can make this a new Australian saying and the foreigners will just buy it because they'll buy anything' and then the Australians bought it and now it's a new Australian saying etc.) and then;
b) a lot of foreigners from the EU and sometimes North America visiting are genuinely not used to the kinds of things you cannot safely do here - like walk through tall grass (never, especially not barefoot), putting on outside shoes without checking for spiders first. These are common sense things to us, but the scaremongering serves a functional purpose (sometimes) of making sure people know to do the things that are common sense to us, and then;
c) I think people used to large animals being deadly are probably not used to 'actually it's the small ones you have to watch out for.' Here, we don't have a lot of the large fauna (bears, wild large cats, etc.) that other countries do - though people in those countries are also quick to point out that these animals are often not causing huge fatality rates - but the mentality changes. You don't have to worry about bears going after your food while camping, but you might have to worry about certain snakes and insects etc. And for people not used to watching out for small animals, the threat and risk of something you might not even see can seem a lot scarier and gets blown out of proportion. Conversely, a lot of Australians are disproportionately scared of large fauna while travelling, because they just aren't used to it and didn't grow up (generally) knowing the common sense practices regarding them!
The true reality is that the majority of Australians live in cities or the suburbs where the risk is minimal. Most Australians will go their whole life and never see a single venomous snake in the wild, for example. Most will never see a blue-ringed octopus. Most will never see a funnelweb spider (here in Western Australia, we don't even have them). Millions of Australians go about their lives with both the common sense of knowing how to deal with deadly small things while also never seeing them. And the reality is that most tourists often stay in cities or the suburbs, and if they camp, are usually doing it with a tour guide who knows their shit and can educate them about how to stay safe.
So yeah, I guess the myth of 'everything's out to kill you' etc. is just... also really unfortunate on the level that a lot of our native animals are really cute and really shy. I've heard foreigners online say stupid shit like 'I'd never visit Australia because of the animals' and I don't know, maybe it's a litmus test to keep out the folks who shouldn't come, because they're the same folks who will turn around and say derisively to Australians 'omg what you do you mean, bears are fine, you just have to know how to deal with them.'
I have done a fair amount of bushwalking throughout my life so my risk factor re: encountering deadly animals is higher than the average person here, and I've encountered deadly / venomous snakes twice. Once it was a baby fleeing as fast as possible (dugite). The second time it was an adult dugite who froze in terror and then quickly wiggled out of there. I wouldn't fuck with a tiger snake, and they're everywhere, and I've never seen one. But if I did, I wouldn't expect to be bitten, I'd expect it to want to get the hell out of there.
It's amazing how much deadly animals almost never want any fucking thing to do with us even if they (tiger snakes) live in the swamp we walk our dog at almost every single day. There's even 'beware tiger snakes' signage up (mostly for kids). We have the common sense to not let our dog sniff in the grasses in the swamp out of sight, but otherwise, it's just a regular walk. We worry more about feral honeybees (our dog is anaphylactic to them and we see them way more often lmao).
Now, on the other hand, if you live in north Queensland or Broome, you are dealing with a completely different level of risk, lmao, but that's the same as in many countries where some places are just riskier than others. And it's also not where most of the Australians live. And even then, the risk still isn't as blown up as people think it is. It's just...you know, that's where the cassowaries and crocs and a lot of other things are, lmao, if you're going up there you probably have a greater idea of the risk anyway.
