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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America under the microscope.欢迎你又回到闲话美国。

Hi James.

Hi Lulu. Hi everyone.

So what are we going to talk about today?

So if I ask you, if you were to think of a country that has dangerous animals, what country would that be?

Definitely Australia. Before I travel to Australia, my Australian friends were saying basically everything can potentially kill you in the wild.

Yeah, I heard that too, those kangaroos can kick pretty hard. But I'm here to tell you that the United States actually has its fair share of dangerous animals as well.

Really? Because usually when I think about dangers in America, I think of guns obviously, but when it comes to wild animals, I think the only two things that I can think of is probably grizzly bear and rattlesnake, maybe alligators, but there are more…

There are more, there are plenty more dangerous animals, and we're gonna be talking about them today.

Okay, but first of all, let me ask you when you say dangerous, do you mean they attack humans or they bite humans?

So, by dangerous, what I mean is a couple of things. First one, are they venomous?

Venomous就是有毒的。

Right.

Like spiders and snakes.

Yes, that's one. And the second is a likeness to attack people, because not all the animals we talk about today are venomous. In fact, most of them I would say aren't venomous. However, they will attack you in certain situation.

Yeah, sure. I mean it's a fascinating topic actually, and it's so far away from my everyday life. Let's start with the big animals. Since my impression of the dangerous animals in United States is grizzly bear. Grizzly basically means what brown or…?

I don't know the meaning of grizzly bear, to be honest, they are big brown bears, really big.

So America has a few different kinds of bears. We have black bears, brown bears and grizzly bears, of these grizzlies are the most dangerous and they are the most aggressive.

Where can you see them?

The rocky mountain range area. So this would be in areas like in Montana，Wyoming, Idaho a few places like that.

Because sometimes you see the people go camping and then they will encounter grizzly.

Right. So for the bears like grizzly, generally what you want to do if you see a bear, back away slowly, don't run, they will run faster than you.

Really?

Yes, bears can run quite quickly.

Wow, 这是刷新我对自然界的认知…

They are not slow at all.

I thought they’re like… because they're huge, they move slowly.

Usually black bear attacks are caused by like people just startling them trying to get too close, things like this.

Okay. But can I ask a really random question?

Of course.

Grizzly is Yogi, Yogi bear?

Yogi bears supposed to just be a simple brown bear.

Oh, that's why he is friendly. Ok, move back to the topic, but how likely it is for campers to encounter bear or bear attacks?

A bear attack? not super likely; a bear? fairly likely. In fact, when you go camping, we actually have things like bear boxes which you are supposed to put your food and stuff into the box, and it locks up. It supposed to prevent the smell getting out, so the bears will not notice it.

So they are attracted by…

Smell, yeah.

Smell, um… and does playing dead help?

For grizzly bears yes, for black bears no.

So you have to remember the color.

For black bears and brown bears your best bet is just to hold yourself into a ball and let them play with you for a little bit and then they'll go away.

Let them play with you?

Yes.

Ok.

A grizzly bear your best bet is to play dead.

I see.

That's not the best advice because likely they are going to test it and kill you.

Ok, but that's bear. And that sounds like a completely opposite tactic compared with when you encounter like mountain lion.

Right, mountain lions which are big cat, I mean they're not as big as African lions.

They're not the lions we see like lion kings.

No, but they are a big cat and they are strong enough to attack; and they can kill people, although that's fairly rare, but they will injure people. My mother was injured by a mountain lion.

A mountain lion, wow.

Try to eat her dogs.

OK.WOW

Yeah.

But for that, you need to sort of really expand yourself and try to look big…

For a lot of these like mountain lion your best bet is actually be big because they don't …normally they are skittish or…skittish isn’t a good word, around humans meaning that they will try to stay away from humans because we are not their food.

And they are somewhat aware of fact that humans can be dangerous as people can hunt mountain lions in certain areas.

I see.

But there are attacks just like if you startled them in nature, they can attack you.

So you need to sort of frighten them away.

Just be big.

How do you be big?

Expand your arms, sometimes making loud noises…

I see.

And care them off.

So bears and mountain lions, any other big animals?

The other really dangerous big animal we have in the northern part of the United States is moose.

Moose?

Yeah.

Isn’t moose the plant eater, it is a herd or what?

Yes it is, but they are extremely territorial and extremely aggressive.

They are aggressive in a way, they will attack you with what would you call it, with its horn?

They’ll try to kick you. They'll try to bite you. Yes, because you are in their territory.

How do we know if we're in their territory?

You don’t…

Until they launch an attack?

So they decided to attack you.

Wow, okay.

And moose are big. They're really big.

I've never seen a moose in real life so…

If a moose decides to, you know, run after you, you are going to probably have dirty underwear.

Hahaha…ok sounds scary. But one of the other things that terrify me are reptiles, like alligators.

Yeah, we got alligators.

How likely are they to attack people? They're more in the warmer part.

They're going to be in the warmer parts in the south, alligator attacks do happen.

Now the American alligator isn’t really big, like if you think of like the Australian crocodiles which is they’re huge, the African crocodiles, there are also huge, American alligators, not so big. So it happens the bites, people you know maybe are fishing and the alligator will bite you.

I see.

So that can happen. And being bitten by an alligator, you're going to have a bad time. I mean they're not venomous, but their mouths are not clean.

But the other thing, the other reptiles that bite are snakes.

Yes, this one you do need to be careful because America does have some pretty gnarly snakes.

How venomous are they? Do you guys have those really hugely venomous snakes that can kill you within steps?

No, none of our snakes are that venomous. The most venomous snake in America is the diamond back rattlesnake.

Rattlesnake就是响尾蛇because it rattles and makes that sound.

Now very few people actually die from the rattlesnakes because we do have effective anti-venom. You can get to the hospital; we do have treatment for it. However, the venom will cause swelling, it can cause seizures, shaking and all kinds of other bad things; and it does cause people sometimes people to die, most at risk children…

Oh, yes, because they are just smaller in size.

Apart from rattle snakes…

The cotton mouth.

Cotton mouth?

It's another venomous snake you find in the south. My younger brother was bitten by one when he was a baby and he barely survived. So they are quite venomous.

Now thankfully for the snakes, they are not really aggressive. Mostly people get bit because they stepped in the wrong place. So when you're in areas， you know there are snakes watch where you're walking , step carefully and don't stick your hand into holes.

I think that is common sense, really, but talking about things that bite, what about bugs? Do you have venomous spiders?

Yeah, in fact we got some really bad venomous spider in America.

Like what?

The black widow.

Really, that's one of yours?

That's a north American spider.

黑寡妇。

You know, when I was growing up reading some nature books, black widow, it almost makes me feel like they will kill you instantaneously.

No, if you get bitten by a black widow as an adult, it will not kill you unless you are allergic to it. But it's not going to be fun.

I'm sure. So you have to go to the ER.

You are most likely going to the ER. Where I grew up, we had black widows, and the spider below this which is a brown recluse, which is the second most venomous spider in America. The brown recluse’s bite hurts a lot, but brown recluse’s bite will eat your skin, so it gives you a big sore on your bite mark.

So it hurts. Both of these bites you were going to go see the doctor, to make sure you're not gonna have a bad reaction.

That sounds terrible.

So where I'm from, you check your shoes before you put them on.

Because…oh yes.

They like shoes.

Yes, because that's what they tell you in Australia as well.

Yeah, dark kind of warm places where they can hide, yeah, check your shoes, on top of that, we also have scorpions.

Scorpions, I know scorpions they sting and their sting can be pretty horrible but they don't necessarily kill you.

They are just like spiders, if you're allergic to the venom, they can kill you. We got some venomous ones in America, they won't kill you, but you'll have a bad day. Because in America we have the small little ones and we have the big emperor scorpions that are the big black ones. And the ones you need to be careful of, the little guys. The little guys are more venomous than the big black ones.

Sometimes that's what happens in nature isn't it. It's the little ones that you have to watch out for.

But the most dangerous bug in America is not spider, it is not scorpion, it’s

tick.

Isn’t tick very small?

Ticks are the tiny bugs that latch onto your skin and suck your blood.

Now what makes ticks dangerous in America is they carry lime disease.

I've heard of that disease a lot, actually I think a while ago some celebrities or saying that they got lime disease, what is actually lime disease?

It’s really nasty, I'm not sure if it's a virus or bacteria, but it's a really nasty bug that causes all kinds of stuff problems, you can cause neurological problem, it takes forever to get over it. It can leave lasting effects, chronic effects.

And that's all from the…

Tick’s bite.

I see. I see.

All right, that's enough to give me plenty of nightmares about nature, and also kind of scare me off from going too much into the wildlife in America.

We got pretty things too.

Yeah, I'm sure you do. So let's wrap up here. In the advanced episode，we're gonna go into perhaps how to actually stay safe and some of the other relevant topics.

Sounds great.

If you have ever seen these animals while you are in United States or if you're interested, leave us a comment in the comment section. We'll see you next time.

Bye bye.

Bye.