Question for Australians

[quirkyquerty]

Genuine question- are you not frightened all the time of swimming and meeting a shark, cleaning and meeting a deadly spider, getting the bikes out of the shed and meeting a deadly snake and so on and so forth?

Or is that just certain parts of Australia? It fascinates me!

It would scare me too!

Good question, am also interested to know this!

Nope. I don’t surf though, so I am never to care from shore and always swim at patrolled beaches. I have had to get out of the water once due to a shark alarm.
I don’t like spiders but I also don’t give them much thought. We get our house sprayed regularly

No.

There are shark patrols.
The poisonous spiders are outdoors types. I really hate spiders but am not worried about coming to any harm.
No chance of snakes in the garden where I live now, but they are generally quite timid and scurry away when they see people.

If you were unlucky to be bitten by the latter 2 it's quite treatable, I can't recall anyone dying from either in a long time. It's like been bitten by a dog (only less common) - you go to doctor or A+E, they fix you up.

All are rare. I'm over 50, never encountered shark or funnel web spider in the wild, haven't seen a snake since I was a kid and I frequently walk in nature reserves. Have stomped a few redback spiders in the garden but they are not super dangerous and hide in predictable places.

Thankfully most of the venomous animals snakes , spiders etc keep well out of the way of people, I live in Sydney but have seen 3 or 4 snakes in the last 6 months in parks all of which were moving quickly into the undergrowth to get out of the way. Basically if you are too big to eat they aren't going to be interested in you.

Strangely it's fairly similar with sharks, I live in Manly where there's an aquatic reserve where there's a fair chance you'll see a smallish shark (metre or so long) if you go snorkelling but again they aren't interested in us. Bigger bitier sharks tend to be in deeper water much further out and as a previous poster said there are patrols and nets at the main beaches. Even if one does get in and bite someone mistaking them for food, they usually leave them when they realise they aren't a seal , not that it would be much of a consolation if you were the one bitten.

Our magpies however , which aren't the same as the European magpies, are bastards during swooping season, happily having a go at all and sundry. But the rest of the year are very chilled out.

Its other people you are at most risk from and that doesn't seem to stop everyone going out of the house!

Most snakes will leave you well alone. The vast majority of people who are bitten by snakes are those who try to touch or pick them up.
You can go for years without seeing a snake.
with spiders you just have to know where they might lurk like in dark places in the garden. I think I’ve only seen one dangerous spider inside my house. The common big hairy house spider the Huntsman sounds and looks scary but are harmless.
Sharks are easily avoided on dry land. They also usually attack at dawn and dusk and further out to sea. I only paddle/swim in the shallows and don’t go out deep.
It really is not as terrifying as it’s all made out to be and the vast majority of people in Australia survive life without being bitten, eaten or killed by dangerous animals.

No. Snakes, spiders sharks etc are all just a part of life here.
If you are overly worried about any of them then I assume your life would be totally miserable.
We have pest control in once a year to spray for spiders. At the beach we don't go out far enough to worry about sharks and where we live we don't get blue ringed octopuses. Snakes aren't really an issue, we live near the cbd of a capital city and there is nowhere that a snake could hide.
We did however used to regularly see brown snakes in the garden/shed when we lived in a small country town

Frightened? No. Aware? Yes, but it just comes naturally. For eg you know redbacks love dark places especially near the ground, so if you were say, picking up a flower pot, you wouldn't stick your fingers under the rim because it's pretty likely there'd be a redback. Same as if you have a garden shed, if you're moving stuff around in there, you'd try to be as hands off as possible until you could check all surfaces.
For funnelwebs, if you're in a bushy area you wouldn't go barefoot, just in case.

Snakes I don't really get here in suburbia but you can see them on bush walks. If you're super organised and going on a bush walk then you might bring a first aid kit with compression bandages, and it'd be a good idea to look up first aid for bites. But I'm sure a lot of people don't bother and just hope for the best.

Sharks? Well I'm too afraid of the rips in the ocean, so I don't go in for that reason!

These types of questions crack me up. Do you really think 25 million people are shaking in their boots in their house.
Yes that's over 25 million people.

The last person killed by a spider was decades ago.
DOES NOT HAPPEN

Snakes kill 1-2 people a year. Statistically, you are more likely to die from being killed by a cow in the UK than if you are in Australia being killed by a snake.
SUPER UNLIKELY - ARE YOU SCARED OF COWS?

Obviously as a water loving nation, then people sometimes sadly drown . That is the biggest problem. A lot of these people are tourists.
If you live in Australia, if you don't have a pool, your neighbour does, or there is one down the street . Kids are given lessons in Primary school as part of the curriculum.

I actually live semi-rural now ( for the last 3 years ) and have yet to see a snake or anything at all scary.

It does make me laugh though. When I was travelling in Europe a few years ago a big hard Scottish lad told me he would love to come to Australia but was too scared of the spiders!
Do you lot think we are all super brave or something? Super funny!

No, and I live in a bushy area. Wear shoes and make lots of noise and it’s all good. I don’t swim out that far at the beach. I’m always closer in than the surfers.

I live in crocodile territory. Never lost a minute of sleep worrying about them. Why would I? They are extremely simple to avoid- don’t swim or stand on banks in their territory. There’s heaps of other safe spots to swim. The really are the most fascinating and beautiful creatures.

The last spider death was 1979. There is antivenom for every type of venomous spider.

Snakebite deaths are rare and in almost every single case, it was some foolish person trying to kill or move the snake who then didn’t administer proper first aid. Snakes are terrified of people and will do anything to avoid us.

Shark attacks are incredibly rare. I don’t really do ocean swimming in shark territory so don’t worry about this.

I’m going to the UK in a few months. Should I be terrified of knife crime?

Nope not at all.

They do their thing, I do my thing and for the most part we avoid each other.

I back on to a national park and am a scuba diver so spend plenty of time around all the critters, check my boots if left outside and make plenty of noise when moving around, still alive, as are all my family.

We have "our" local magpies who know we are gooduns' and leave out snacks for them so have nothing to fear there either. 😉

Kids could swim before they could walk and were never ever left unsupervised near water.

Fire though, bush fires worry me and I have a stack of insurance, a "go bag", and a family plan for if/when it comes to us. But I accept the danger as the trade-off for living next to the bush, and I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Nah as PP said the only thing that scares me are swooping bloody magpies.
All the other dangerous shit mainly leave humans alone.

You know how statistically unlikely it is to be harmed or killed by a spider/snake/shark. I lived in Melbourne 1 year and never saw a single snake or big spider.

@marzipansux

Yes I am scared of cows a bit, been chased a few times and my dad has ended up in a&e from a cow charge, definitely not to be messed with. I'm certainly a little wary of going camping in Australia, my dp wants to go for an extended trip but I'm a insisting on accommodation in air conditioned hotels for both creature and heat reasons.

Nope. I've lived in Aus 16 years and never seen a snake except in a zoo/wildlife park. It's been decades since anyone was killed by a spider and very few are venomous. I've only had a nasty one in the house once I think, ever....
As for sharks - I'm not a big ocean swimmer anyway. That's more because I hate sand and we have lovely outdoor pools near us where I'd rather swim (no rips, waves, sand, safer and easier with kids)

I always wear gloves when gardening though.

Skin cancer is a much bigger worry!

I'm 38 and have never seen a snake. And apparently it's common for snakes to live in roofs in Oz, but again - I've never seen one, not scared of them but aware they are around. Re spiders - the type of spiders that come into homes are huntsmans or daddy long legs which are not poisonous. And we have other critters like geckos, possums etc that eat spiders. Re sharks, regular beach going swimmers don't swim far out enough to be eaten by sharks. The odds of getting bitten by a shark are very very minimal.

Haha. See why that is just what you are used to . And we are used to a few ( rarely seen ) nasties. Just the same. We all get on very well here. Main issue is the heat in summer ( hence all the air/con and pools ) - like you guys have radiators because of the cold.
I hate camping, myself, but I could show you amazing photos of one of my sons who loves it. The places he goes. Things like setting up a bbq in the middle of a creek. Wonderful light and birds. Def give it a go. If you come out of peak season you can probably rock up to a motel when you are over it and have a shower and and a nice dinner and hit up a pub.

Visited Australia recently and the only indigenous wildlife we saw outside of zoos/sanctuaries were some turtles in a river and a couple of wallabies outside our friends’ house. Oh and a kookaburra that nicked some chips off us.

Not at all. Most sharks attacks happen in open unpatrolled beaches (which have signs of possible sharks) and the chance of a serious attack is very small. In between 1791 and 2018 there's been 237 fatal attacks. I won't tell you how many people die on the roads because no one in the UK cares about this statistic.

Spiders. Coming from Spain, the first time I saw a huge huntsman on my bathroom wall, I screamed the whole house down :). These days if they are big, I gently catch them with a kitchen towel and put them in the garden, if they are small, I leave them where they are. They are superb in catching mosquitos!

As to snakes, I've been in Australia 12 years, live in the Blue Mountains and the only ones I've seen are in the Zoo.

80% of Australians live within 2hrs of a capital city (we have one in each state).

While there are snakes in cities the further south you go the less common it is - Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide will have less snakes and spiders than Darwin or Brisbane.
I have lived rural as a nurse and pretty sure had a snake in the back yard of the nurses cottage I was staying in as I did a stretch of nights and the hospital gardener didn't want to disturb my sleep by mowing the very tall grass. The trick is to make noise and vibration. It will usually scare them off.

It's the blasted magpies in swooping season that are the issue. I was in Melbourne a month, walking to the hospital to my shift and got my first experience of one. Very close to my eyeball.

I live in the bush. The only snakes I've seen are the ones running away from me. They don't want a confrontation and, like any other wild creature, they would rather escape and only attack if cornered or threatened/stood on. I just stay alert when walking around. Spiders are no big deal where I am. I don't like swimming in the sea.

Logically, climate disasters like bushfires and flooding are scarier. But when I was there I did not enjoy the spider on my bath towel or the one under my car handle.
Humans aren’t all cool and rational, fears aren’t either.

On the other hand, and living in Blue Mountains backing a reserve, I get plenty of wild life. Lorikeets, rosellas, king parrots and cockatoos are always calling for a feed, and I've had the visit of a wallaby or two and even a koala, 3 years ago.

😁

Sharks, no, surfers are out further than me so they’ll probably get chomped first. Plus, don’t swim when it’s sharky weather, ie not at dawn or dusk, and not when water is murky or there’s a lot of baitfish around (you can tell from the birds). Just common sense. Not keen on irukandji though which is why I don’t want to live too far north.

there’s only a few different types of spiders I’m not keen on and the rest don’t bother me.

Brown snakes are bad and aggro but generally not in suburban areas. Tiger snakes I just stay away from their habitat.

grasshoppers though, ugh, gross alien like and scary. I would never ever go anywhere in central Australia if they had a plague of them, too terrifying.