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Do any animals scare you?

Josie

Josie

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Are there any animals out there that scare you?

I think Great white sharks scare me :eek: Oh and spiders but only when they run... because they can run freakishly fast!!
 
Spiders.

Apart from them, only in terms of what they could do to me... so if I was on safari and saw a lion poking his head into my tent, you bet I'd be scared!

Slugs do turn my stomach though, and I'd rather not touch a worm.
 
Wasps and hornets. Bees I can tolerate. With some anxiety but I know they won't sting just for the sake of it.

And jellyfish. I once had to abort a safety stop in a dive (by descending and changing location, I didn't put anyone at risk) because just as we were approaching our stop point there was a whole shoal of them. Yeuch.
 
JoanneF said:
Bees I can tolerate. With some anxiety but I know they won't sting just for the sake of it.
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You should have met the kamikaze bee who came in our garden last summer. It wouldn't leave J alone, he ran indoors and it chased him round the house and back into the conservatory, then it turned its attentions on me and wouldn't leave me alone until I couldn't help but swat it away, and then it stung me. Our neighbour who keeps bees was adamant it wouldn't have been like his because they were all well mannered, but he said he had had a belligerent queen in the past so maybe it was one of her lot...
 
Spiders are my biggest dislike!
I hate it and panic when one drops down from the sun visor when driving in the car :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
The thing that makes me curl up maggots.
A childhood trauma, I was a curious child and I spotted a strange little box in the fridge one morning. Even though it wasn't mine I decided to open it and see what it was. As I pulled the lid off and saw and the crawling maggots I dropped the box and the maggots fell to the floor and into my slippers. I had to scoop them back into the box while they wriggled in my slippers and round my toes, then take off my slippers one by one and get those back into their box as well. I felt sick but I got on with it..I'd been naughty and I didn't want mum and dad to find out!

Everything else I just treat with the respect it deserves..My daughter keeps exotics so I've seen a lot of very dangerous things very close up
 
Spiders

And cattle. I'm always wary of walking through a field of cows or young steers especially if I have a dog with me. The steers in particular are nosey and will come over en masse and at high speed to see what's up. There have been several occasions when a herd has stampeded downhill at me and I've been very thankful that there was a stout hedge/fence between us.

If I can detour round a field of cattle then I will always take that route
 
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stinging insects worry me [bee-sting allergy], but only to the degree that i avoid hives, wasp-nests, etc.

Nasty dogs don't worry me as much as pairs or groups of nasty dogs - our childhood neighbor, Mrs Frank, had 3 dogs, a lovely white M GSD, Snowball, & his 2 Lab-X offspring, M & F - Fio & Lisa. They were nothing like their sire, who was tolerant, sane, well-mannered, & devoted to Mrs Frank; they chased wildlife & livestock, they were sneaky biters who'd come up behind U & bite yer calves or butt, & they'd use teamwork to do it - one on front, barking & lunging to block yer way, & one slipping in to sink teeth into ya. :eek:
I learned to carry an umbrella in self-defense, & use it opened, held horizontal, to clear a safe-zone around me.

I'm wary of rabies-vector wildlife [fox, 'coons, skunks, bats, & roaming cats], but only if they act oddly or we're in close proximity.
I've been bitten by spiders several times, so i do shake-out my shoes or boots at my weekend-client's house B4 i don them to leave - i wear slippers while i'm there; i've caught 3 spiders in my basement room, so far, one of them walking on the bed, so there's a small but healthy ecosystem of resident predators & prey.
I put the spiders i catch outside at midday, onto the shrubs near the door, where they can make it or not; i don't toss them onto the ground in the dark, when it's 20' F & they'll freeze in minutes.

There's a soft-bodied multilegged thing that i don't like, i developed a dislike for them in childhood, they give me the creeps - but it's more "Ugh!..." than "Eeek!"
Called 'house centipedes', i also see them in outbuildings, on forest floors, under boards or around stones, etc -

HOUSE CENTIPEDES ON THE MOVE

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Those god damn rats. I had a bad experience in my childhood with them (I mean I'm still a child but whatever..?) In 2 of the 3 places I lived in, they were infested with rats. They were brave enough to the point where they'd sit on the stairs of the flat and watch you go up, sometimes even nip you. Safe to say, that probably traumatised me. I literally can't go anywhere near a rat, not even pet store ones.
 
Oh wow rats!
I remember while growing up, going to one of our local farms that stored grain. my friend, she had a little terrier and we would hunt for the rats that lived within the old farm buildings around and in the grain stores.
Another good place for rats was in the chicken sheds, when the flocks were being changed and the sheds were being cleaned out. That was all back in the 60s !! Memories :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
excuseme said:
Oh wow rats!
I remember while growing up, going to one of our local farms that stored grain. my friend, she had a little terrier and we would hunt for the rats that lived within the old farm buildings around and in the grain stores.
Another good place for rats was in the chicken sheds, when the flocks were being changed and the sheds were being cleaned out. That was all back in the 60s !! Memories :rolleyes::rolleyes:
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Yea, don't think I'll ever want to live on a farm. Each to our own I guess. Luckily, I'm getting a cat soon so no more rats. :eek:
 
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umm - Don't count on CATS to exterminate household rats. :oops: Sorry. :(

Cats & rats can & do co-exist, inside & outside of the cat's home - cats will often ignore rats who eat their food, which is troubling, as rats will both defecate & urinate as they eat, & they're not too particular about whether it's into or onto the food, or outside the dish, AROUND the food. :confused: Blarggh.
The rats' urine can carry Lepto, & their feces can carry intestinal parasites & nasty bacteria, so neither is something U want to have in yer food or water!

getting rid of the rats is a separate issue from cats - except that the eradication methods used on the rats must be cat-safe B4 the cats arrive in the house. YOU CANNOT USE POISONS to kill rats, & have cats - it's simply too dangerous to the cats.
Poisoned rats act funny & are easy to catch - the same cat who watches a rat eat from their bowl with total indifference, will stalk & chase a poisoned rat, & quite possibly eat it, & then the cat will be poisoned in turn, by eating the poison in the rat's body. // Similarly, if the cat finds a dead rat, poisoned B4 the cats took up residence, s/he may eat the corpse - & be extremely ill, or die.

Fully-enclosed electronic traps that use batteries to electrocute the rodents, or sticky-traps that trap the rat on a sheet of goop, are both cat-safe. However, sticky-traps are only cat-safe IF THE GOOP IS WATER-SOLUBLE - check the packaging to see how U remove the goop, if U get it on U; if it requires a solvent, U cannot use it around cats - if it says "warm water" will get it off yer skin, that's safe.
:thumbs-up:

Good luck, rats are very difficult to evict,
- terry

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leashedForLife said:
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umm - Don't count on CATS to exterminate household rats. :oops: Sorry. :(

Cats & rats can & do co-exist, inside & outside of the cat's home - cats will often ignore rats who eat their food, which is troubling, as rats will both defecate & urinate as they eat, & they're not too particular about whether it's into or onto the food, or outside the dish, AROUND the food. :confused: Blarggh.
The rats' urine can carry Lepto, & their feces can carry intestinal parasites & nasty bacteria, so neither is something U want to have in yer food or water!

getting rid of the rats is a separate issue from cats - except that the eradication methods used on the rats must be cat-safe B4 the cats arrive in the house. YOU CANNOT USE POISONS to kill rats, & have cats - it's simply too dangerous to the cats.
Poisoned rats act funny & are easy to catch - the same cat who watches a rat eat from their bowl with total indifference, will stalk & chase a poisoned rat, & quite possibly eat it, & then the cat will be poisoned in turn, by eating the poison in the rat's body. // Similarly, if the cat finds a dead rat, poisoned B4 the cats took up residence, s/he may eat the corpse - & be extremely ill, or die.

Fully-enclosed electronic traps that use batteries to electrocute the rodents, or sticky-traps that trap the rat on a sheet of goop, are both cat-safe. However, sticky-traps are only cat-safe IF THE GOOP IS WATER-SOLUBLE - check the packaging to see how U remove the goop, if U get it on U; if it requires a solvent, U cannot use it around cats - if it says "warm water" will get it off yer skin, that's safe.
:thumbs-up:

Good luck, rats are very difficult to evict,
- terry

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Yes of course. I didn't count them as an extermination as there will (hopefully) be no rats at the new place. I've heard their scent could ward off rats? Besides, this might sound selfish but the rats will hopefully leave my place for an easier target.
 
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Baltimore, MD, has a thriving popn of rats, being a harbor city, as well as a thriving popn of feral cats & free-roaming owned cats & abandoned former pets.
The cats are often side-by-side with rats, when eating - a researcher who's studied the rats for decades got IR camera equipment some years back, & was astonished to see how intimately tolerant the 2 species are, in complete denial of the old "cats kill rats" or "cats reduce rodent numbers" dictums. :oops: Obv, as usual, the cats & the rats didn't read the rule-book, as they rub along together just fine, thanks. :( Dammit.


Trophic Garnishes: Cat–Rat Interactions in an Urban ... - PLOS
journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0005794by GE Glass - ‎2009 - ‎Cited by 22 - ‎Related articles
Jun 3, 2009 -
...we characterized house cat (Felis catus) predation on wild Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) in residential neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. ... Jackson [16] found that Norway rats were food items in only 6.7% of feral cat feces.
...Studies of house cat predatory behavior in Baltimore have supported numerous other reports [10], [26] that suggested cats only occasionally killed rats, & rarely have a numerical impact on the prey population, though they can qualitatively affect its structure.
Jackson [16] found that Norway rats were food items in only 6.7% of feral cat feces. He also reported that there was no demonstrable relationship between the frequency of cat predation & the abundance of either rats or cats in the alleys.
Childs [20], [27] also observed that cat predation on Norway rats was rare - only witnessing five attacks in more than 900 hours of observation. In addition, cats were highly selective in the size of rats they caught - killing rats that were no more than 200 g (86% were 25–100 g), while avoiding larger (up to >600 g) rats.
______________________________________

That means that over 93% of cat-feces were 'something other than Norway rats', the most-common & profligate species in Baltimore, currently. // He also noted that cats, if they chased rats at all, chased juveniles, leaving the breeding adults to get on with the business of making more babies, unmolested.
Rats BTW have been studied extensively in Baltimore for over 60-years, & i doubt that researchers will run short of rodent subjects any time soon - trapping nearly 60% of the adults in 2 particular alleys did not affect the long-term popn-density in the least, they quickly made-up the decline. :(


Exploring rat infested streets of Baltimore city - YouTube
upload_2018-5-22_11-16-31.jpeg▶ 2:58
Jul 4, 2017 -
Uploaded by Nocturnal Echo Imagery
Rats that look like kittens, lol. ...


- terry

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@Mad Murphy i agree i hate maggots thats the one thing that makes my skin crawl and me feel sick :eek: the worst is my hubby uses them for fishing!
I love pet rats! My hubby has 4 and they are actually really sweet! Sorry lol
 
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