Spiders, snakes, and crocs... oh my.....

[PDXnative]

Given the major metropolitan areas in Australia, what poisonous and dangerous creatures would you find in each one?

[Tiffani]

you'll have to be more specific; it varies from place to place (redbacks seem to be ubiquitous, for instance, but the paralysis tick is only on the east coast and doesn't go as far south as Melbourne).

One thing's for sure, anywhere you go in australia there will be poisonous, potentially deadly creatures. And the odds of you encountering one are pretty high. The odds of you being killed by one are very very low....

[Byo]

Never seen, snakes, crocs in Sydney. The spiders aren't that bad but suppose it depends where your from.

[Halo]

Never seen anything in the cities...

[SNH]

Everyone overemphasises these dangers in Australia. There aren’t many people living in the outback – where the real dangers actually are.
Everybody seems to have this image of Australians spending their days wrestling crocodiles and snakes, and rushing to emergency rooms with deadly spider bites and insect stings. It’s simply NOT TRUE!!

However, there are some things you should educate yourself about. Australians grow up knowing about them, and so they just take them for granted.


I have spent a huge portion of my life in Canberra. Canberra may well be the capital city, but more than half the territory is bushland - even around the main city buildings.


The only snakes I have ever seen in Australia were at the zoo and at the wildlife centre I took a foreign visitor to in Western Sydney.


Our big thing is the spiders. We may well have a few dangerous spiders around, but I have never seen them. My mother does a lot of gardening, and she has been bitten by spiders twice. Both times she had a reaction to the bite and needed antibiotics, but she has never been bitten by anything life threatening.

The worst spiders (in my opinion) are the huntsmen. They often come into the house, or give you a bit of a fright when they run across your windscreen when you're driving somewhere!! They are not dangerous, however - just enormous (often about the size of a hand)!! However, I have become accustomed to dealing with them, because I'm the person in my household who is least afraid of them!!


I know that my relatives' houses in Sydney often have a lot of cockroaches. But not the standard black variety – these are bigger and browner. Sydneysiders seem to ignore them, but I know that if they were in my house I wouldn't be so forgiving.

Magpies can become dangerous in springtime. They are very fierce when it comes to protecting their young, and they ‘swoop’ people from September to early November. These birds are quite large, with very strong beaks, and all schoolchildren get lessons in how to deal with them.
You come learn which birds in your area are dangerous – sometimes the local government or council will put warning signs on trees where dangerous birds are residing.
If a magpie is watching you the best thing to do is to stare at it until you have left ‘their area’. They will not approach you if they know your eyes are on them.
At that time of year you will see that anybody who is out walking carries a big stick. This is used both to provide something higher than your head, should a magpie swoop you, and also to hit a bird away should it become too aggressive. Some bike riders paint eyes on the top of their helmets, and some schoolchildren wear hats with eyes painted on the top.


In some places - including in Canberra - kangaroos are a big problem. That may sound all exotic, but they have bred to a point where there is no food for them, and they make their way into the suburbs. At one intersection the other day I counted five dead kangaroos and a dead fox on the side of the road. A car colliding with a kangaroo means a lot of damage to your car, and dealing with gravely injured wildlife. We also have a few kangaroo attacks on suburban walking tracks - kangaroos can be cute, but the males are also known to attack when threatened.
In Canberra it is not unheard of to come home to find a kangaroo on your street, or occasionally a run over carcass on your nature strip. I think this is highly unlikely in most bigger cities though!!


In the water there are a lot of dangers, but Australians are so used to them we just take them as a part of our day. Queensland may sound idyllic, but for a lot of the year the beaches are not safe for swimming. I'm sure you know all about box jellyfish and the like.
Sharks are RARE - if you were to die of a shark attack, you would be in the news for ages - it is an EXTREMELY rare occurrence. There are warnings put out where sharks are common. Recently a young surfer died in a shark attack - he was swimming in an area everyone had been warned not to swim in.
Bluebottles can be a problem at the beach. They are bright blue and hard to miss, and while they leave a nasty sting, they are not going to kill you.

Crocodiles are not something you’re going to have to worry about in many places – unless you plan on living next to the water in Darwin, or in selected parts of Queensland. And they’re not going to pay a visit to your house!!

That all sounds like a lot!! However, there are similar ‘nature things’ for people to learn when moving to other places, like Canada, or anywhere in Asia (learning to deal with monkeys in my home in India was quite an experience!!).

[Tiffani]

indeed SNH, thanks for that synopsis.

I grew in North Carolina, in the southern US, where we dealt with things like black widow spiders and rattlesnakes on a regular basis. If you learn what to look for and where NOT to stick your hand without checking it out first, you should be fine.

[Bluecookie]

Originally Posted by Tiffani

indeed SNH, thanks for that synopsis.

I grew in North Carolina, in the southern US, where we dealt with things like black widow spiders and rattlesnakes on a regular basis. If you learn what to look for and where NOT to stick your hand without checking it out first, you should be fine.

Thats reassuring as my Ozzie boyfriend decided to show me on You Tube last night the various spiders i could encounter when i come over!! needless to say the bites look horrible!! coming from the UK where the scarest thing we have is a jellyfish or a tiny wasp!!!

Hels