Australia’s Deadliest Animals Are No Match for America’s Guns
Aussies embrace risk for their kids in a way that would make a lot of American parents cringe.
Australia’s snakes, crocodiles, octopi, spiders and sharks: None is as dangerous as a gun.
Photo montage by Christine Vanden Byllaardt. Photographer: Ian Waldie/Getty Images
Australia has more creatures that can kill you than just about any other country: salt-water crocodiles with record-breaking bite-strength, the world’s most venomous snakes and spiders, and of course sharks. A woman was attacked by a shark just last month in Sydney Harbour while taking an evening dip in the ocean.
Fortunately, she is expected to recover; a veterinarian on the shore was able to apply a tourniquet. The attack inside the harbor — generally seen as safer than the ocean — was the first in 15 years. Even the coastal waters around Sydney, where millions of people swim each year, are quite safe, with only one death from a shark in the last 60 years.