Unreasonable Fear
Published by DanM December 26th, 2007 in Southern Utah Wildlife and Nature, Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions, Uncategorized.
Why are people afraid of nature?
I was talking to a neighbor about the chipmunks and squirrels that are all around our houses recently. “They carry Hantavirus, you know.” The neighbor noded wisely. “And Bubonic Plague too.”
I like ‘em. Having a few little furry creatures around is one of the real joys of living here in Color Country. But there is an undertone of fear that most people have about nature. You can see it in people who won’t pick up a little garden spider. And most people think I’m nuts because a rattlesnake spent most of last summer about twenty feet from my back patio. (A Good Neighbor Tries To Get Along)
Let’s look at the real risks. My neighbor works in hospitals and clinics. There’s a new strain of antibiotic resistant bacteria that is mainly found there (MRSA staph). In 2005 (the most current data, just released in October 2007) there were 1,598 in-hospital deaths from MRSA. How many Hantavirus deaths? All of the Hantavirus deaths ever recorded add up to only 10 per cent of just the 2005 MRSA in-hospital deaths. And there were just two plague deaths in 2006, the first fatalities in 12 years, and one in 2007.
It seems that staying away from hospitals is a much better bet than staying away from chipmunks. If only we could. But we can stay away from, say, ATV’s. Wikipedia reports that, “136,700 injuries associated with ATVs were treated in US hospital emergency rooms. In 2004, the latest year for which estimates are available, 767 people died in ATV-associated incidents.”
Will we see anything done to control the ATV killer? Yah, like that’ll happen.
Paul Simon said it best in his song. “A man hears what he wants to hear. And disregards the rest.”
Hanta is actually passed by certain mice. Squirrels have a nasty habit of digging which eventually leaves them in the protection of your homes crawl space. Where they really do little than multiply in the safe confines of such a space. Oh and while doing that they chew on every thing they can get their teeth on, including your wires exposing them to sparking and roasting your chestnuts over an open fire!
But are cute furry little animals that in the south make for a delightful dinner, I hear tell.
The snake makes a great household pet, as he is not afraid of the virus and rather enjoys eating the mice that carry it. Though I think you need to be selective about which snakes you allow to hang around. They are not soft or furry and have this nasty habit of striking out at warm critters as well.
But yes, stay the hell outta hospitals, people die in those places!
Cussing ATV’s is like cussing guns. Or maybe bring in auto fatalities and injuries sustained from their use. While we are at it, how about “stranded” hikers, or those that get to cut off their own arms and all the associated costs they bring upon the rest of us when they do not use good judgment for trip planing.
Just a thought.
I actually wasn’t “cussing” ATV’s. (Although maybe there should be an open season on them to keep the numbers down.) I mainly think of ATV’s as an appropriate punishment for their owners. There are a lot of things like that in life.
Thanks for the warning, but in my experience rattlesnakes are a lot more trustworthy than many people. I hope that the one that visited us last summer comes back again.
I (mostly - I think) agree with your comment about “stranded” hikers. I actually wrote a blog about that. The Lowest Common Denominator. The specific case you suggested, however, isn’t an example of the problem. I think you’re referring to Aron Ralston’s experience in Bluejohn Canyon. As nearly as I can tell, Aron Ralston hasn’t blamed anyone else and hasn’t sued anyone. From what I know about him, he sounds like someone who might be on the higher moral plateau occupied by rattlesnakes.
Ah. The perception of risk largely is more about the unfamiiar than the fact.
Thanks for the correction on the squirrel-hanta virus transmission (I do apologize for the misstatement earlier).
Deer mice are fairly common in Zion. They can carry hanta virus and spread it through their droppings. (Chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, etc. - rodents, all are attracted to unnatural feeding sites.) I am familiar with mice around and in the house.
I have never seen a patient with hanta or plague in 15 years of primary and urgent care in LV. I agree they are very rare causes of illness.
I am though very familiar with the wounds inflicted by domestic dogs and cats, having seen many lacerated faces of toddlers and extremities of others from family dogs. I have sent many older patients to the hospital OR with swollen infected hand joints due to family cat bite infectons. We do enjoy the animals despite their proclivities.
As for ATV’s - dangerous, noisy and they should pay for the noise and dust nuisance they cause to the otherwise quiet BLM lands. But, we’re still working on convincing people of the risk of smoking after 50 years of public warnings and countless deaths- good luck on ATV education. Try obesity and lack of exercise, after that (those are top notch contributors to premature death).
Hospitals, do stay away, they are doctors’ workshops (not always pretty and definitely not without faults). Fortunately, it keeps getting harder and harder to get patients into them. Mostly, we can do so much with outpatient diagnostics and have so many more effective ambulatory meds. It used to be such a treat to have young adult patients in the hospital with pneumonia or a kidney infection. With appropriate care they got better predictably. Now, the non-elective admits are mostly complicated patients who earlier would have died of their disease, predictably. Not as much fun, just nail biting work. Modern medical care has kept a lot more of the sick alive to live longer than other sorts of voodoo have in the past - along with civic things like clean water and sewers, people now live better for longer periods of time (or have I mistaken medicine with chemistry?).
We have a recent nation wide epidemic of community acquired methacillin resistant staph (different from the longer on-going hospital acquired MRSA problem). I saw it first about 5 years ago when a succession of high school wrestlers came into our neighborhood clinic with a skin rash after a meet in CA. It didn’t resolve on the conventional antibiotics. By culturing the organism we found an older antibiotic that worked well. Reports are that a few children have died with a pneumonia involving this new strain - now resistant to more and more antibiotics. Oh, the evolution of life, rather unpredictable but none the less interesting.
As for rattlesnakes, live and let live. I think you will have more of them nearby as you feed the wildlife. They probably will not hurt you but some neighbors kill the snakes.
Back to chipmunks, they sure are cute and do cheer a person.
Thanks for the reply, Leo!
Other than the much more detailed and experience supported facts you quote, I can’t really see much difference between your opinions and mine. (My facts, except for my warm, personal relationship with McRattle, were all gathered using web searches.)
There may be mice around here, but I’ve only seen a couple since I have lived here. (Mainly right after I moved in. I think the cats that all live inside my house might have something to do with that. The life expectancy of a mouse that gets into our house might be pretty brief.) But the fact that chipmunks will attract rattlesnakes is something I actually count on. They attract blowsnakes too. And both of them attract king snakes. As this thing gets going, the environs of my house might get to be pretty snakey and that’s all right with me.
My wife and I were talking about this just the other day. In general, we think that the interrelationships of life are more complex and misunderstood than most people are willing to admit. Commercials on TV would lead you to believe that all you have to do is spray everything you touch with something you bought at Walmart. After that, happiness (and sex appeal too) will bloom. We think things are never that simple.
The web of life that we are fortunate enough to live next to is more complex than any of us understand. Like it or not, we have already dramatically disturbed this web. Our only choice at this point is to try to guide the impact we have already made. Sunflower seeds, which lead to birds and chipmunks, which lead to hawks, foxes and rattlesnakes, is a fairly obvious disturbance that we have decided we like.
But it appears that you might have missed the main point of my blog, which is, “Weigh the real, actual, relative risks of things. Don’t let the nose ring of mass perceptions about things lead you around. Nature is not your enemy.”
My example, hantavirus versus MRSA, was selected to put a spotlight on a mass perception that is simply wrong. The mass perception of rattlesnakes makes them a huge danger to everyone. But I have lived in the southwest deserts for my entire life and I have never known anyone who was actually harmed by one. (I’m sure that, in your profession, you do. But that’s a statistical anomaly.) On the other hand, the mass perception of hospitals makes them a nurturing, healing environment. You and I seem to agree that, on the contrary, they’re dangerous places to be avoided if at all possible. My wife actually picked up one of those resistant infections during a routine hospital test once.
So I have looked at the real risks and concluded that rattlesnakes are nothing to get worried about. But I’m very afraid of hospitals. And my bank account is positively terrified of them!