To ask what is the largest wild animal you could fight off?

Do you know Muntjacs have sharp tusks? They’ve been known to gut dogs that have cornered them, so my advice would be to get a good grip of its skull or it'll have you!

Anyhting that can bite, scratch and/or climb will get the better of me. This includes squirrels and birds. I'll have a go at defending myself, but I've never had to, so I wouldn't be surpised by the probable outcome.

I was thinking that I could maybe take a fox, but then I remembered the time I had to disentangle one from a mass of wire fencing that it had got caught in and I've still got the scars from that. Deffo not a badger, even my very big dog used to give badgers a huge swerve if we came upon one on a walk. Nothing too bitey, which rules out rabbits and most rodents. Deer kill a fair few people every year so I'm not taking one of those. Hares are surprisingly large when full grown and have teeth and claws...

I think I'm down to moths and butterflies plus the invertebrates like worms and snails.

I don’t think I could fight off any animal if it properly went on the attack, as in the scenario above.

I should have to rely on being able to run away faster than it could chase me - so maybe a tortoise?

Wolves are terrifying. I saw some at fairly close range at an animal sanctuary with my 2year old DD. They looked like they wanted to hunt us. I walked very sharpish away from that section.

I'll say I could fend off a chicken comfortably. 😆

I'm going to win this thread. I've taken on, and beaten a spider monkey! I was doing work experience in a zoo. It managed to escape it's enclosure and started running at me. I ran back at it, shouting and screaming, it took one look and headed straight back to the cage!

I reckon I could take on a wild rabbit. But not a hare. They do boxing and stuff.

None. I'm scared of everything.

I once got bitten by a Water Boatman.

Google suggests they don’t actually have mouths but I swear down that fucker bit me.

I was surrounded by geckos last week and I wondered what number would be able to overpower me. I think I’d be able to fight loads of them off unless it got like that Patricia Highsmith story about snails…..

In terms of a single animal, i could only beat something I could pick up and fling away from me so, maybe a small monkey. Maybe a lemur?

An earwig.

My Nan got pecked by a swan when in her 20s and hated them for the rest of her 95 years!

I think I could possibly take on a hamster but that would be my limit.

I reckon I could take on most baby animals, a baby panda or elephant up to a couple or weeks old should be manageable. Even a lion cub should be ok until their teeth come through. Though having said that, I’ve known kittens be real bastards when they launch at your legs and hang on with their tiny claws so maybe anything in the cat family might be problematic

Death awaits, with nasty big pointy teeth.

We believe you even if science doesn’t 😂😂

OP you were pushing it when you said badger.

Now you’ve gone full delusional and talking about punching sharks.

😂😂

This is my favourite thread title ever!!

Predator/carnivore wise, I'm going size of a large cat/medium sized dog

Prey type animal, im going small deer/goat kind of size (minus horns etc)

I sadly have no dramatic experience to base these (probably quite optimistic) assertions on

Knowing what to do and actually doing it - radically different!

I know how to keep a croc’s mouth closed. Obviously it has to be closed at the time.
I know how to play dead. Works for bears, I believe?
I know how to disable a dog in a certain situation.
I know how to safely catch snakes.
(I sound like a psycho! But I just collect stories from people who do know these things, and mixed with interesting folk.)

Ive successfully scared cows away, by being big, loud and quite insane.
i also scared away a big pack of dogs once, again, by being insane.

Being charged by an elephant in musth was the most terrifying experience - never reversed a car so fast in my life.

However, Ive also been regularly attacked by rabbits (evil!) and hamsters (also evil).

So I think I’d go with running away if at all possible. Or play dead, which is the limit of my physicality these days.

This is so funny and nothing on this thread has made me believe I could take on anything.
I might be able to "shoo" out a sheep if it came in the front door, but not if it was on the attack.

I am regularly attacked by my cat and I can't fend it off without a weapon. A cushion or towel is my preferred weapon - just to protect my legs from "friendly" bites.

A large golden retriever that was trying to f me in a field. Don’t think it was left capable of trying that again. I laugh now but it was absolutely terrifying.

But how are you going to give it a good strong punch? The water resistance will take the force out of it unless you’ve very impressive biceps, and it'll just be a tap on the nose, probably making the shark even crosser…unless its on land, or in the massive puddle with the goldfish mentioned earlier. 😂

I would have a good go at a giraffe, if I could stay out of its neck swing and take it's knees out.

Nah I don't think I could, we've got badgers behind our back fence faster and bigger than you think , am I allowed an implement?

Ha! You must be relatively near me! I’m not sure how fast they run but I’d like to think I could catch him if I saw him. Unlikely tho, so if he decided to go for me I’d probably be a goner! I think anything that moves faster than a tortoise and has fangs/claws I probably wouldn’t be able to fight off. I do wonder if I could reason with a monkey, or use my (nonexistent) charms on it, but in reality it would probably rip my face off. In my head I could take most things on with my crutches, but I expect that would just make them more angry. I’ve tried to picture the actual size of a wild bear, maybe a black bear or a polar bear, relative to me (I’m quite tiny) and I just can’t picture it properly. I’d definitely give them my lunch tho, to try and stall them. I’ve been knocked down on to the ground by an over excited dog once when I was younger and was surprised how difficult it was to get it off me and back up, can only imagine how impossible that would be if the dog was attacking me instead of trying to mount me 🫣
I guess my actual point is I could probably fight off a tortoise…