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Hello everyone, and welcome back to America Under the Microscope advanced episode.

Hi Lulu.

Hi James.

Dangerous animal edition.

Well, since we thoroughly scared you with the basic episode of talking about all these dangerous animals.

You definitely scared me.

I figured we could scare you some more.

I am a total city girl. So does that mean I can feel kind of safe if I just stick to big cities in America?

No, sorry, because cities like Los Angeles, do get mountain lions; cities in the North, do get occasional bears or moose wandering in; if you live in Florida, alligators are there, and bugs, bugs are everywhere.

Mountain lions I actually did some check after the last episode, they really don't look that big, but once I watched this video, I think a year ago or so, I think many listeners probably watch that as well, I think it’s this American guy encountering a mama mountain lion…

Uh, that one was dangerous.

She was obviously trying to protect her cubs, which are not in the video, but you could just see this guy backing off and trying to threaten the mountain lion, trying to be big, but all 3 minutes of video, all you could hear is him swearing.

Well, I think you'd be justified in swearing in that situation.

Probably really freaked out, so you just said it's very dangerous.

Yeah, I want to say it's very dangerous. If you came across a mama mountain lion protecting her cub, yes, that is dangerous because that mama is gonna be the most dangerous situation you could be in, because that mama will do anything to protect her cubs. But he did the right thing of being big and backing away slowly, even the dropping “F bombs” is...

…not helping the situation.

Not hurting it. Mountain Lion doesn't know what it means.

In some previous episode, we talked about how Americans have this very big outdoors, culture and camping and everything. Does that mean that most Americans or average Americans know how to deal with this wildlife?

No, it sadly doesn't, because a lot of American do live in cities or urban areas, and not everyone is big on outdoors activities and they are aloof when it comes to dealing with wild animals; and this is actually where a lot of animal attacks take place is with people who…

Don't have knowledge…

Don’t have knowledge or sometimes just simply lack common sense and get attacked. So like a common thing you get is like in Yellowstone.

Oh, Yellowstone park.

A big nature reserve, lots of wild animals there. And people try to get really close to the animals there, like the bison. Oh, it's a bison, bison are harmless.

They are plant eaters, they are herbivores.

They are giant and you spook them, they're gonna chase you. And people get too close and they get trampled.

Oh, I think I’ve basically new found respect for herbivores because before I used to only be scared of bugs and reptiles and basically carnivores.

It's not what they eat. It's what they can do…

To you, yes, sure….

Animals will protect themselves. So yeah, people just they think oh it's like a zoo I can get up close and take a picture, and no, in fact there're signs everywhere that says keep your distance.

Oh, there are signs.

Oh, yes, they warn you to keep your distance. If they're near, stay in your car, don't try to touch them.

So like Yellowstone Park, that's obviously a hugely famous tourist attraction. As a tourist, if I go to Yellowstone Park, what kind of precautions I need to take?

What in general, keep your distance, that's the easiest thing to do, just keep your distance, just keep a healthy distance of you and the animal, don't do anything sudden that might spook them. Like don't make sudden noises, don't make sprinting or sudden movements that might chase them, don't throw things at them, it’s something people would do. Don't try to feed them because it's also something people try to do.

I thought feeding the animal is only bad for the animals.

Well, they might…

Consider you as the food.

No, they're not going to consider you as food, but you can get bit , get trampled, then it’s spooked and then hurt yourself. So you're not supposed to feed them. It's not a zoo, it's not a petting zoo, they are wild animals.

Think of it as a safari kind of thing.

Kind of, Yeah

In the previous episode, you also said about spiders and all these bugs you need to check your shoes…

Yep.

And where you step.

Check your shoes and where you step is much more about snakes and hiking.

Now thankfully snake is something you don't really worry about much in the cities unless you live in like very specific areas, for most part of the country. There are mostly only something you would encounter out and about in nature. And for them, you just watch where you step and you avoid them. If you hear rattling, move away from the sound.

Would they launch attacks like actively launching attack?

No, rattling snakes are actually kind of …they don't want to attack, they actually rattle as a warning.

Oh, like back off.

Back off, and if you get too close they will launch at you and they can launch pretty far.

But in general, they will… because you're not food to them, humans are not food to rattlesnakes, so they don't want to deal with us.

I see, but apart from all these common sense things, can you actually buy some safety gears to protect yourself?

Oh yeah, there's lots of safety gear, everything from the…you know, what you'd expect like bug spray and all that, but also things like bear spray.

What is bear spray?

It's supposed to be a spray that has a smell that bears don't like.

I bet it’s not honey flavor.

It's about just a really nasty smell. I don't know if it really works or not, but humans can’t smell it.

Exactly, it's not just bare repellent is probably also people repellent.

Then they have like snake venom kits that are supposed to help you get the venom out which are not supposed to use, doctors don't recommend them.

I think you just need to get anti venom.

You just need to get to hospital, you get bit by snake your goal is to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

There's nothing you can really do in nature to…to stop it, like you need to get yourself to the hospital which can be a challenge.

Yeah, especially if you're really away in a wild.

But honestly the best safety gear for things is proper clothing like wear bright colors actually help.

Bright colors?

So people can see you.

Oh OK, because I've always heard that bright colors kind of attract bugs.

Oh, for bugs, yes, but not for big animals. We're not talking just about bugs, bugs we have spray. If you're going to some places with snakes, recommend you wear like thick boots, good thick pants that they are unlikely to bite through; when you're in places where there's bears, they recommend taking a gun, something has decent power because if you shoot a bear with a small caliber gun, you're just gonna make bear angry.

Oh God.

All right, I don't think that really suits me because I think I pretty much will be scared stiff if a grizzly is trying to come after me, so that doesn't work for me.

To be fair, so would I, I'm not sure if I could shoot it fast enough…

Exactly, and then like you said you just gonna make him angrier if you…

Miss…

If you miss, or if you just hurt him a little bit. But dialing back a little bit, so far, we have been treating these animals or talking about these wild animals like enemies because they attack they can hurt human.

They're not enemies.

They're just living their life, right?

Right

And what's the situation like right now? Are they actually endangered? Are they precious animals or are they just normal.

Some are endangered, some are not, like the bugs are not endangered in any way, the snakes are also not endangered. Some of the bears are, some of the mountain lions are. And a problem with them, there is a slight increase in attacks because their habitats can be affected by human development, so they end up moving into the cities; global warming has also affected it, so they have affects in their diet, so they might go into people's neighborhoods and eat from the garbage cans, so does lead to more attacks.

Do you guys have like animal hunters that hunt these dangerous animals.

Yes, that does happen, so like historically in the past, some animals have been hunted to near extinction because of the fear of attacks and a good example of this would be sharks.

Is it because of jaws? Or is it because of the classic…

Just the classic like people think sharks are super dangerous, and sharks attacks happen. They're actually pretty rare.

I think they're pretty rare even in some of the traditionally, when you think of Australia, you do think of sharks as well, but…

I didn't actually mention that in the previous one, but we have those sharks too.

If you take precautions, it really isn't that likely.

It's very very unlikely. In fact, if you got bit by a shark, you're going to be making national news, because that’s rare.

Because it's rare. Okay, I think what you've described it happened in China as well, with tigers when people are worried about them, fear sort of just leads to destruction in some parts.

All right, I think we're gonna wrap up here. If you have any experience of encountering these animals or if you have anything to say about wild animals and wild animal attacks, or even just protecting wild lives. Leave us a comment in the comment section.

And I just want to say that even though these animals we talk about them as if they're like a threat, but they actually are just like us part of the nature. All right, on that note, leave your comment in the comment section. We'll see you next time. Bye

Bye, everyone.