A need for perspective

Ok this post is to reassure all the city slickers who’ve never seen a bear, a shark, a poisonous spider, or a snake (pretty much all of us).

My post “A tiny killer” generated some concern that Australia may present too many dangers for us. Some of you have been genuinely concerned about our well-being, and we love you for that.

However, a bit of perspective is needed to understand the kinds of dangers we will face during our trip.

In 99.9999987 % of cases when man meets shark, the result is a dead shark:
An astonishing 100 million sharks are killed every year. Most of these sharks are killed for their fins or for sport. Asians in particular love shark fin soup, which result in a gruesome bloodbath: sharks are hauled out of the water, their fin severed and the still-living shark is promptly thrown overboard. The shark then sinks to the bottom of the ocean unable to breathe.

Now the actual number of shark attacks for 2005 in the United States is 62. Out of this number only one was fatal. And please remember that hundreds of millions of swimmers enter the ocean every year.

Contrast this with the risk of a fatal car accident. In 2005 alone, 44 000 people died in car accidents in the United States alone. Every hour, 14 people die in road accidents in India!

And let’s not forget the sun, which trumps all dangerous animals in Australia: more than 2000 person die every year of skin cancer in Australia. The major cause of skin cancer is of course exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.

To sum up we are afraid of sharks, bears, snakes, and spiders because:

A – we rarely see them
B – they look frightening
C – we tend to meet them in unfamiliar environments which adds to stress

It is also worth noting that animal behavior is well-defined and studied. For example the information related to minimizing the risk of a shark attack is widely available. The do’s and don’ts are easily obtainable on the Internet.

Humans are a different matter. History teaches us that humans are the most unpredictable specie in the animal kingdom and, most importantly, are known to inflict unparalleled amount of hurt on each other. History also taught us that this hurt is both unpredictable and, if the number of weapons produced and used in this world can illustrate anything, infinite.

Just my two cents.