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It's a popular meme, "in Australia everything tries to kill you", often backed up by the list of dangerous animals, such as box jellyfish, variety of spiders, salt water crocodiles and sharks. However it's purely anecdotal, and one could imagine similar list for example for US.

Do statistics actually confirm that Australians are more likely to be hurt or killed by animals, than people in the other regions of the world?

Update:

As it's not clear how one would measure "more danger". I'd say attacks per capita and fatalities per capita would be good metrics for comparison.

vartec
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    from my own experience, there is nothing in Central European urban areas that could try to kill you. There are some mosquitoes in the nature in mid-summer, but much fewer then what I've heard of Africa. I've met some biting flies in Slovakia but nothing deadly. The spiders that live here are very small (few mm + legs). – John Dvorak Sep 01 '13 at 15:15
  • Well, it's true, Europe is quite unique in this aspect. Although wild board do wonder into Central European suburbs, and they could be dangerous. Every now an then people get killed attempting to remove hornets' nest on their own etc. – vartec Sep 01 '13 at 15:24
  • I've never seen a wild boar around. A person in my group saw it while we were walking through a mountain forest once and left an official route accidentally. No attack though. – John Dvorak Sep 01 '13 at 15:29
  • @JanDvorak: OTOH, Australian friend of mine who lives in Sydney said that he has never seen Sydney funnel-web spider. That's why I'm asking about statistics, rather than anecdotes. – vartec Sep 01 '13 at 15:34
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    Upvoted and starring. I'm pretty sure Czechia has zero history of jellyfish stingings, though :-) – John Dvorak Sep 01 '13 at 15:42
  • @Sancho It's a meme, a semi-joke, or an implied claim: for example http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/AustralianWildlife and http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ It's so widespread that there are probably people who believe there's some truth to it. Although it's not the kind of question that I like, the voting on this question and the voting on [this meta-question](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/2497/2703) show that it's the kind of question which 'the community' wants to have and enjoy. – ChrisW Sep 01 '13 at 19:49
  • @Sancho I understood it that way too: which, is why I didn't "like" this question. But I guess the question as stated (about relative danger) is trying to assess how absolutely dangerous it is. Also the link I showed to cracked.com (although a joke) is clearly making a relative/comparative claim. I've little doubt that someone somewhere has once made a claim about the relative danger; though I also agree with Jan Dvorak's comment, that the 'relative' is most probably 'relative to Europe' or even 'relative to England'. – ChrisW Sep 01 '13 at 20:39
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    same as you won't find bears and wolves in inner cities in Europe, I doubt you'll find salties and dingos prowling the streets of Sydney. – jwenting Sep 02 '13 at 04:20
  • The last snake I saw was in northern Bulgaria. The creature responsible for most human deaths is the mosquito, but not so much in Australia. I believe the large animals responsible for the most human deaths are hippos and elephants. But not so much in Australia. – hippietrail Sep 02 '13 at 10:55
  • Related question on Travel.SE: [When visiting urban areas in Australia, do I need to be worried about deadly insects / animals?](http://travel.stackexchange.com/q/5116/324) – Andrew Grimm Sep 02 '13 at 10:59
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    There is a difference between "trying to kill" and "succeeding to kill". The meem doesn't claim that Australia's animals kill the most people, it just claims that they are the most poisonous, have the sharpest teeth etc... It's a "fair" comparison between a western urban country with effective public health system and infrastructure aimed to deal with those animals and rural developing countries with almost no infrastructure or health care. – SIMEL Sep 02 '13 at 13:34
  • @IlyaMelamed: fair point, hence I ask for people that are "hurt *or* killed". – vartec Sep 02 '13 at 13:37
  • @sancho, because of those: http://weknowmemes.com/2013/05/australia-where-everything-is-trying-to-kill-you/ http://visual.ly/everything-australia-can-kill-you http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/the-10-most-dangerous-animals-in-australia/ http://www.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/travel/2013/04/15/the-top-10-things-that-can-kill-you-in-australia http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2430&start=0 http://www.cracked.com/funny-5997-the-animals-that-make-australia-deathtrap-it-is/ – SIMEL Sep 02 '13 at 20:56
  • on a *per capita* basis, and given Australia's hyper urbanization (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbytitle/D1D3980B1944DAC6CA2568A900136291?OpenDocument) - it would *seem* that risks of animals living more than 50km from the coast would be the lowest in total, so you need to look at how many live/could attack in that narrow band between beach and end of "civilization" – warren Sep 10 '13 at 14:10

2 Answers2

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TLDR: No. Australia's most deadly animals are in fact foreign.

Below is a break down of animal deaths in Australia. First native animals and then non-native animals. Where discrepancies exist in the data, both values are stated.

Native Animals

Snakes: With 41 recorded deaths between 1980 and 2009 (source 1) (or 53 from 1979-1998(source 2)), snake deaths in Australia average out at less than two per year.

Spiders: Nobody in Australia has died from a spider bite since 1981 after the successful introduction of antivenom for all native species. (source 4)

Sharks: Accounted for 25 deaths between 2000 and (March) 2012 in Australia, about 2 a year. (source 1) Or 216 in 227 years (source 6).

Crocodiles: Historically, crocodiles account for less than one death per year here in Australia, although that is increasing slightly as the crocodile population rises following the ban on crocodile hunting in 1971.

Blue Ringed Octopus: Just 3 recorded deaths in the last century (source 1). Or 2 (source 7).

Stonefish: One unconfirmed death by stonefish in 1915. (source 5)

Cone Snails: 0 deaths - ever (source 1).

Killer Jellyfish: Jellyfish account for (at time of writing) 66 deaths since records began in 1883. The box jellyfish was responsible for 64 deaths, and the Irukandji the other two. It sounds a lot, but still less than one death per year, more like just half a death per year. (source 1)

Dingo: 3 deaths between 1980 and 2012. All children. (source 9)

Non - Native Animals:

Horses: Around 20 people a year die from horse riding accidents (source 1). Or 40 over 6 years (source 8)

Cows and Bulls: 20 in 6 years or 3 per year. (source 8)

Bees: Around 2-10 people per year in Australia die from European Honey Bee stings after going into anaphylactic shock.

Domesticated Dogs: 12 over 6 years or 2 per year. (source 8)

Sources:

(1).http://www.bobinoz.com/migration-advice/australias-killer-creatures-the-truth-about-deaths/

(2). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_snake_bites_in_Australia

(3). http://www.avru.org/general/general_fatals.html

(4). http://australianmuseum.net.au/Spider-facts

(5). http://australianmuseum.net.au/Reef-Stonefish-Synanceia-verrucosa-Bloch-Schneider-1801

(6). http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/shark-attacks-in-australia-timeline.htm

(7). http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/projectnet/blue-ringed-octopus.html

(8). http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/dangerous-wildlife/2008/07/04/1214951042706.html

(9). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo_attack

Coomie
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    +1 as this is quite good, but it's missing comparison with other continents/countries. – vartec Sep 02 '13 at 08:04
  • BTW you're sources are contradictory. Bob In Oz states that nobody died from spider venom since 1979's introduction of antivenom, while according to AVRU there where some, and antivenom was introduced in 1998. – vartec Sep 02 '13 at 08:08
  • @vartec There are many antivenoms available and many spiders species. I've updated the point in question with another reference. This is quoted from source 4 "In Australia, only male Sydney Funnel Web Spiders and Redback Spiders have caused human deaths, but none have occurred since antivenoms were made available in 1981." But wikipedia's redback page says the antivenom came about in 1956... – Coomie Sep 02 '13 at 08:24
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    the whole point on "...since antivenom was introduced" seems to back up the fact that Australian fauna is more dangerous, surely? There are many lethal varieties, but there are good defences. – Rory Alsop Sep 02 '13 at 09:16
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    Counting the number of deaths may not achieve the answer we want since Australian children are taught the dangers of and how to recognise deadly fauna from a very young age. Anecdotally, I encountered brown snakes, tiger snakes, red-bellied black snakes, funnel webs, redbacks, hammerhead sharks and one blue-ringed octopus before the age of 12 and knew to stay away from them. I am also aware of shark nets protecting many of the beaches I swam at as a child (although not all of them) and beaches are sometimes closed due to stinging jellyfish. – Ladadadada Sep 02 '13 at 09:43
  • @Ladadadada a good point, and one that I briefly wrote a comment about, but then I realized that that was the criterion that the OP had in his question. – Andrew Grimm Sep 02 '13 at 11:01
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    BTW. you only mention fatalities, but not risk of getting hurt not resulting in fatality. For example BobInOz source claims that *"around 2,000 Redback bites occur in Australia each year"*. – vartec Sep 02 '13 at 11:12
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    The answer doesn't give how many death per interaction. Obviously that people have more and longer interactions with farm and domestic animals than wild life. A true comparison trying to show that domestic animals are more dangerous than wild should show not the total number of death but the ratio of deaths to interaction. A spider would be more dangerous than a horse if 50% of the interactions with it result in death but only 5 people interact with it each year, while a horses death percentage is 1% but 20,000 people interact with them (numbers are made-up for example). – SIMEL Sep 02 '13 at 13:58
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    Unqualified dangerousness... Seems like a few ways to think of it, whats more dangerous per interaction (Bites, stings, paralysis); Horses may kill more often than a Hammerhead Shark, but put 1000 people with sharks, and 1000 people with horses, I'd wager the horses less dangerous. – AthomSfere Sep 02 '13 at 16:23
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    I have to agree with the other comments here. While this is technically accurate, it's a disingenuous answer, relative to the spirit of the question - of course horses and dogs kill more people, because *more people are in contact with horses and dogs*. The real measurement of whether the native fauna is dangerous would have to include some measurement of deaths relative to the rate of human contact or interaction with that fauna. Which can, of course, be tricky data to get, if it exists at all. – LessPop_MoreFizz Sep 02 '13 at 17:45
  • This really needs to compare apples to apples, so e.g. Australian spiders (all types) vs. other countries. Or maybe compare per capita deaths due to wildlife encounters in Australia vs. other countries via ranking. As was mentioned, deaths may not be enough as people learn to avoid dangerous animals. It may come down to comparisons of the raw danger of the animals in question. In any case this answer doesn't provide a comparison against other countries and so doesn't actually answer the question. – bob Apr 11 '19 at 15:35
  • This answer fails to account the fact that _Australians_ live in Australia - and those are way more adept at handling murderous coalas and boxing kangaroos than your average non-australian. – T. Sar Apr 11 '19 at 20:04
  • Also relevant and not mentioned. While those numbers (2 per year, 1/2 per year) are tiny, relatively speaking, Australia's population at 25m is also tiny. – mcalex Apr 13 '19 at 03:09
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Without a specific, notable version of this claim to address, we're just in the realm of speculation about what the meme actually means.

Here is a list of the world's deadliest animals, confirmed by two sources.

http://www.livescience.com/11325-top-10-deadliest-animals.html, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5149977/Top-10-deadliest-animals-on-the-planet.html:

  1. Mosquito (all regions) (Also see Achille et al. 2010: "In terms of morbidity and mortality caused by vector-borne diseases, mosquitoes are the most dangerous animals confronting mankind", and Wilson 2007: "The most dangerous animals on Earth are in fact mosquitoes")
  2. Asian Cobra (Asia)
  3. Australian Box Jellyfish (Australia)
  4. Great White Shark (all regions)
  5. African Lion (Africa)
  6. Crocodile (Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia)
  7. Elephant (Africa, Asia) (See Henja et al. 2012: "elephants are among the world's most dangerous animals"
  8. Polar Bear (North America, Asia)
  9. Cape Buffalo (Africa)
  10. Poison Dart Frog (Central/South America)

Of these 10, counting roughly, there 4 are present in Australia, 6 are present in Africa, 4 in South America, 4 in North America, 6 in Asia, 2 in Europe.

The most dangerous species in the world are not more present in Australia than elsewhere.

To properly answer the question "Is australian fauna more dangerous?", we'd need:

  • a ranking of all fauna by dangerousness
  • the list of fauna in Australia
  • the list of fauna elsewhere in the world

Then, we could compare the average dangerousness rank of Australian fauna vs the average rank of fauna elsewhere in the world.

References

Achille, G. N., Christophe, H. S., & Yilian, L. (2010). Effect of Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (H-14) on Culex, Aedes and Anopheles larvae (Cotonou; Benin). Stem Cell, 1(1), 60-8.

Wilson, R. I. (2007). Neurobiology: Scent secrets of insects. Nature, 445(7123), 30-31.

Hejna, P., Zátopková, L., & Šafr, M. (2012). A fatal elephant attack. Journal of forensic sciences, 57(1), 267-269.

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    While an older list, I have my doubts about the veracity, as it leaves off the Hippo. I believe the Hippo kills more people in Africa than the Crocodile and Lion. – Michael Richardson Apr 11 '19 at 19:33