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• Life and Death Matters
• Repeat After Me:
  S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L
• Plan to Survive
• Must Have Water
• Keeping Your Head Straight
• Being Smart About Shelter
• Making Fire
• Survival By Environment
• Desert Survival
• Cold Weather Survival
• Tropical Survival
• Sea Survival
• Everyday Worst-Case Scenarios
• When It's a Bear, Don't Stare
• Sinking Underwater
• If Your House Catches Fire
• Avoiding Hypothermia
• When Lightning Strikes
• Getting Out of Quicksand
• Lost at Sea?
• Taking on a Shark
• Snake Bites
• Killer Tornados
• Plants and Animals
• Plants You Can Eat
• Plants You Can't Eat
• Dangerous Animals

Dangerous Animals

Animals rarely are as threatening to the survivor as the rest of the environment. Common sense tells the survivor to avoid encounters with lions, bears and other large or dangerous animals. You should also avoid large grazing animals with horns, hooves and great weight. Your actions may prevent unexpected meetings. Move carefully through their environment. Do not attract large predators by leaving food lying around your camp. Carefully survey the scene before entering water or forests.

Smaller animals actually present more of a threat to the survivor than large animals. To compensate for their size, nature has given many small animals weapons such as fangs and stingers to defend themselves. Each year, a few people are bitten by sharks, mauled by alligators, and attacked by bears. Most of these incidents were in some way the victim's fault. However, each year more victims die from bites by relatively small venomous snakes than by large dangerous animals. Even more victims die from allergic reactions to bee stings. For this reason, we will pay more attention to smaller and potentially more dangerous creatures. These are the animals you are more likely to meet as you unwittingly move into their habitat or they slip into your environment unnoticed.

Keeping a level head and an awareness of your surroundings will keep you alive if you use a few simple safety procedures. Do not let curiosity and carelessness kill or injure you.