Thought everyone understood that wild animals can be dangerous, but mostly hide or run away.
Only laid eyes on a panther once. It had checked me out ahead of time, utterly ignored me. Only seen one gator that wasn’t hauling ass away from my canoe or kayak. Saw a mama black bear with tiny babies galumphing along behind as she ran off. Went back the next day, couldn’t see her, but I heard the warning! Water moccasins hiss and pitch a fit, run away. You’d have to be deaf and step on one. (I’ve come close!)
Then you got people like my wife. She went to meet me at the trail entrance the other night, saw a small animal cross the path, got spooked and ran back to her car. Daughter and I saw a roll of teenage armadillos, up close! My wife asked if they would attack us.
Wife’s friend came over from England. She was choking down panic and the sun set on our camp in the swamp. I assured her that speaking in a normal tone of voice would scare anything away. Never been in wild woods and never at night!
I’ve had people online act like I’m an idiot for getting into the uncivilized places I often go. Many people here in NW Florida won’t go on the water unless it’s a large body and in a large boat. They think I’m going to get attacked in my kayak.
So, what’s your perception of the animals where you live? Do you think the people in your area feel the same?
My feeling is pretty similar to yours, though I am also aware that there are animals that can and will hurt me. For example, for one of the trips I want to take above the arctic circle, standard advice is to carry a shotgun and surround your camp with a portable electric fence to protect from polar bears, since polar bears will actively hunt humans.
But in general I expect animals to not want anything to do with me. For this, I use what I call the “raccoon principle”, which goes like this: Suppose you see a raccoon. It is hissing and growling at you, clearly pissed off. Do you want to fight this raccoon with your bare hands? Probably not - sure, you could almost certantly kill it. But not before it bit the shit out of you, possibly doing significant and permanent damage to your soft tissues and giving you an infection. So understand that for most large animals, you are the raccoon.