Stories like this make me wonder why anyone lives in Australia, since virtually everything seems to want to kill you. Or perhaps Aussies are tougher than the rest of us.
Just don't go into the warm water or the box jellyfish will get you. Keep an eye out for Sting-rays too... Nobody wants to go out like old-mate Steve.
Oh and don't go into the cold water either, blue-ringed octopus... Nasty buggers.
Rivers too... Not a great idea... Crocks are pretty nippy when they're hungry.
Creeks are pretty safe... Except for those duck-billed, beaver looking mother-fuckers with their poisonous spurs everywhere... (platypus).
Best to avoid the dessert too... Taipan's are pretty nasty. Oh and the fire ants...
Come to think of it, the bush has Tiger Snakes... Probably should avoid that too... Just stay at home...
... Oh... And keep an eye out for the spiders... They really like being indoors where you sleep... Will also kill you...
The main thing to remember though... The true threat... Our sworn enemy for all eternity... Our nations true oppressors... Those fucking Emus.
But also, these guys are like… A+ proof of dinosaur’s evolution into birds… you can pretty much picture Cassowaries in place of the raptors in Jurassic park…
Some extra Cassowary info.
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2019...
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/how-da...
annecdote: i once went for a job at edinburgh university zoology department (i would have been about 19 at the time), and was confronted with a mostly disected mess.
interviewer: what do you make of that?
me: it looks like a badly disected cassowary.
it was a cassowary (where from, who knows - they don't roam wild on arthur seat) and i didn't get the job (good).
https://www.jcu.edu.au/this-is-uni/natural-and-built-environ...
Yes, sure, we have some deadly snakes, spiders, crocodiles, a few plants like in the OP, etc. But so do many other countries/regions around the world, including the USA.
In practice, the vast majority of Australians never have any contact with them, and actual cases of people being killed or seriously harmed by these things are extremely rare, and are much less common than fatalities/serious injuries from traffic accidents, which also have quite low rates by international standards.
Australians like to think of themselves as tough, but, I dunno, we're pretty much like most other people around the world in my experience :)
Edit:
Some actual data:
There were 541 animal-related deaths reported to an Australian coroner between 2001 and 2017, with an average of 32 animal-related deaths reported per calendar year. Land mammals comprised the majority (71.0%) of deaths, followed by reptiles and amphibians (10.7%) and insects and invertebrates (8.7%).
...
Nearly one third (31.8%) of animal-related deaths involved horses.
https://www.ncis.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/NCIS-fact...
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In the same period, nearly 25000 people died in traffic accidents, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
That being said, they never lost a war against their wildlife...
At least not deadly to humans. Not sure what impact it's having on, say, other plant species in The South.
I've cleared a couple patches of it a long time ago, it takes persistence but isn't as bad as some other plants in the end. Letting a goat have a go at it a few times a year will end it in a couple seasons.
America doesn’t have wild dogs. America doesn’t have a biting dog problem. There were 27 dog related deaths last year. Considering how many dogs exist, that’s nothing. People sleep in bed with their dogs, people let their dogs play with infants.
Eastern brown snakes and Sydney funnel webs like urban environments. But as you say they don't kill many people even though they can.
At least the snakes are mostly kind enough to fuck off to where the humans don't live.
However, people living in north QLD, NT and WA are definitely in nature's territory. Crocodiles are now inhabiting almost every waterway, dry conditions make taipan snakes and spiders a real threat, and the rainforest really does has dangerous plants and animals. As an FNQ resident, most locals no longer swim at the beaches.
I think your perspective depends on where you live.
Going from memory, feel free to correct: - Tons of snakes that will ruin your day (and probably week/month), but most of them have high survival rates and anti-venom. I was shocked to find they're often survivable without treatment? We're running out of anti-venom for coral snakes (interestingly they're basically cobras), but they're famously docile and have a weak bite.
- Two dangerous spiders, but both fairly treatable with medical attention. Though brown recluse bites that progress can be pretty scary
- Alligators are surprisingly non-dangerous, if not fed, or intentionally interacted with. They'll walk right past you, and want nothing to do with people
- Big cats aren't too common and tend to avoid people; but I guess they've been seeing a few more attacks out west
Australia has crocs that seriously hunt people, and fight them over territory. Plus snakes that are super deadly. I guess almost all venomous spiders are less of a big deal than I was lead to believe growing up and usually not fatal, even without medical attention... but you wouldn't want to get bit by a funnel web.
Cars and humans are far worse.
The thing about Australia's flora and fauna is that Australia has such a low population density. I think that if it matched the US, far more people would die from it's creepy animals etc.