Enclosed my commentary article in sb1032, in press for the Chicago Herpetological Society Bulletin.
Human fatality due to attack by big cats, venomous and constricting reptiles, and crocodilians, in the USA, a 16 year survey
By Scott McKenzie
Assistant Director, CapeFear Serpentarium
Managerial Secretary, North Carolina Antivenom Bank
All statistics taken from the National Safety Council (NSC) or Center for Disease Control (CDC) unless otherwise noted
Fatal injury involving Big Cats and its statistical relationship
151,000 people died last year from external causes in the United States. Every 16 years, roughly 2,500,000 Americans die in this country from forces “outside themselves”. One should not think that these forces are outside their control, however, since approximately 25 % of these incidents involve acts of self-harm. About 20% are deliberate acts against a “victim” by other people (assault deaths). The remaining 55 % fall in the category of what we call “accidents”, cases of people not paying attention to what they are doing, simply putting themselves (or someone else, if the victim is a child) in harm’s way. A piece of food becomes fatal when the partaker fails to swallow it correctly and it blocks the airway; a stairway when one is not watching where one puts one’s feet; an electrical appliance when standing in water; or an automobile when incorrectly positioned on the highway, etcetera. There is no limit to the number of accidents because there is no limit to the number of situations. For all that, most accidents conform to certain recurrent types, suggesting that Homo sapiens, for all his learned observations on life, never seems to learn from his mistakes.
The type of death we will focus on in this chapter is one of the very rarest forms available to the human being, that of being attacked by a large cat (here called “Big Cats”). These are defined as the lions, leopards, tigers, jaguars, and cougars being held in captivity in the United States. (Cheetahs, bobcats, servile cats, etc., are not figured in this report, because we have no records of death being caused by them in the US.)
To call death from captive Big Cat attack “rare” is really an understatement. “Rare” is death by a lightning strike, which is yet about 100 times more likely than being killed by a Big Cat. Death from captive Big Cats is so extremely obscure and unlikely that it deserves its own category for which the English language does not even possess a suitable word. Death from Big Cats involves only 0.0003 % of all fatal injuries each year, with a predicted occurrence of 0.5 deaths per year per 275,000,000 people in all 50 United States per 16 year period. This figure seems stable. It is neither more nor less today than 16 years ago. It is logical to conclude then, that of all the ways a human being can die, being killed by a Big Cat is one of the most freakish. Indeed, it is so unusual as to have almost no parallel, being exceeded even by such freak deaths as “death from air pressure changes.”
Out of 2,500,000 deaths from external injury in 16 years, only 8 could be attributed to Big Cats in captivity in America. These “accidents” involved the keepers themselves or other interactive situations, people who deliberately chose to be in contact with Big Cats. Whether adult or child, these people could have walked away from a perceived danger. They were not pursued and killed. They themselves were often the pursuer and antagonizer, putting their hands or other body parts into the animal’s cages, ignoring warning signs, etc. Whether at the facility of a private Big Cat breeder, or at an AZA accredited zoo ( unsafe practices can lead to unsafe results for both people and animals. And yet for all that, such incidents are so statistically minute as to be irrelevant to most people.
Insurance companies feel the same way. They do not demand a higher premium from zookeepers than for other professionals, whether these are waiters in restaurants or even other insurance salesmen. Zookeepers are not even mentioned in the US Bureau of Labor Statistic’s list of “ten most dangerous professions.” The award goes to timber cutters, with 118 fatalities per 100,000 workers. This is followed by: fishers (with 71 fatalities per 100,000), pilots and navigators, structural metal workers, driver-sales workers, roofers, electrical power installers, farm occupations, construction laborers, and truck drivers. It would seem even pizza deliverers have more dangerous work than zookeepers.
Thus, death from a captive Big Cat or other captive wild animals does not now, nor has it ever represented, a human health problem, nor is likely to become so. Even simple injury by Big Cats is extraordinarily rare, with a total of only 48 human injures in the USA for the past 16 years, or about 3 injuries per year. While the lethal potential for Big Cats in captivity would seem to be great, because these are large formidable creatures, its actual incidence is negligible.
This is not due to the small number of Big Cats held in captivity. As many as 15,000 Big Cats are estimated in all zoos and collections in the USA. Greater than 96 % of these animals stem from captive reproductions; that is, they were born in America and not imported from their native lands. Laws restrict such import, and the commerce in Endangered Species has been restricted for more than 30 years. In an effort to attach a sense of wrong-doing to conservation efforts to reproduce and save these creatures from extinction, animal rights groups like PETA and API promote the idea of the abundance of these animals in America as “a problem” rather than the resource it actually is. They link their possession to “smuggling” and “poaching.” In fact, quite the opposite is the case. Lions, tigers and leopards are not worth enough money to justify the freight and fees that must be paid to land them here in the US. The cost of a captive born tiger cub in the US is about $300. The cost of freight to ship such a cub from Asia is about $2000. It’s simply dollar and cents.
Indeed, with such a surplus of the animals here in North America, why import more? Factually, there are more tigers presently held in North American collections than in the Asian wilderness, where these animals have been largely eradicated. While the loss of habitat for these creatures is deplorable, conservationists consider the American surplus fortunate: Big Cats have a more secure future because of it.
Nor is the scarcity of accidents in America due to scanty populations of Big Cats in the American wild. There are more than 30,000 mountain lions free-roaming the USA. Throughout the 1990’s these animals were hunted at the rate of about 3,000 per year. Despite having one of the largest populations of mountain lions, the state of California recorded only 16 fatal injuries over a period of 114 years! The black bear, another highly capable man-killer, is even more numerous in the USA, with 330,000 examples roaming free. Thus, the threat of “escaped” carnivores would seem to be even more remote statistically than the already remote threat of captives ones, as this study will show.
Big Cat injuries are not increasing as has been proposed. Factually, fatalities involving captive Big Cats have actually decreased in the past 16 years. During the six-year period of 1994 – 1999, there were 5 deaths, and 22 injuries. During the following 6 years to the present, there were 3 deaths with again 22 injuries. While the number of injuries has remained stable, the fatalities have decreased by 60 %.
From this we can only conclude that the danger to public health from captive felines is extremely low. Indeed, it is so low as to be on a par with “death from constipation” – the only comparably minute statistic available to us from the National Institute of Health. The statistics of the National Safety Council put death from Big Cats in perspective.
In the year 2000, the following accidents accounted for loss of human life:
Pedestrians crossing the street 5,870
Riding a bicycle 740
Riding a motorcycle 765
Occupying an off-road vehicle
(e.g., on go-carts, three-wheelers, etc.,) 717
All transport accidents 46,749
Over the 16 years of this study, a total of more than 747,000 people were killed in vehicular related accidents – the population of a large city.
The most dangerous animals to humans are other humans. Here is a brief list of murders and methods of murder in the USA during the year 2000.
Assault by firearm 10,801
Assault by sharp object (e.g., stabbing) 1,805
Deliberate acts of poisoning 2,557
Deliberate acts of hanging, strangulation and suffocation 104
Unspecified acts of murder 4,159
All assault-related deaths 16,762
It would seem that animals are not actually the most savage of beasts. 268,192 people were deliberately killed by other people, predominately other family members, during the 16 years covered by this study. One could make a case that the wrong animals are being put into cages.
Relative to fatalities caused by other animals in one year, death from captive Big Cat attack was lowest of all:
Animal rider (e.g., horses) or occupant of
animal-drawn vehicle (e.g., horse drawn carriage) 97
Bitten or struck by a dog 26
Bitten or struck by other mammals (e.g., cattle) 65
Bitten by a venomous snake 12
Bitten by a venomous spider 5
Stung by bees, wasps and hornets 54
Venomous plants 9
Collision with an animal in a car 147
Big Cats 1
Thus, the probability of being killed by any kind of animal is amazingly low compared to the other the possibilities of fatality. Human beings kill many, many times more human beings than animals do, but Big Cats seem to kill the least number of people of all.
Ironically, human beings kill themselves in far greater amount than other people kill them:
Death from intentional self-harm (e.g., suicide): 29,350
It comes as a shock to realize that an amazing 469,600 people are so unhappy as to deliberately kill themselves in the USA, and yet this was the approximate number of suicides during the 16-year period covered by this study. People are their own worst enemies.
Among recreational events, interaction with Big Cats, or indeed, any form of wildlife, whether in the field or in captivity, ranks lowest of all. In the year 2000 we saw the following “fun” fatalities.
Death from fireworks displays 5
Death from boating mishaps 1,096
Drowning while swimming 1,702
Accidental discharge of firearm
(e.g., death from shooting accidents) 776
Sports-related deaths on the playing field 277
These are just a few of the “fun” deaths. They become even more formidable when multiplied by 16 years, but this number I will leave to your imagination.
Taking a bath seems to be a relatively dangerous business, with 341 people drowning in one year, or 5,456 in 16 years. More than three times that number died striking their heads in other bathtubs, to a total of 1,214 people annually or 19,424 in 16 years. Among inert objects, plastic bags seem to be potentially more lethal to Americans than any kind of animals, with 327 people, mostly children, suffocating to death in one year. Electrical Christmas decorations contributed to the deaths of 1/4th of the 3,300 fire victim fatalities last year. In 16 years the celebration of Christmas contributed to the deaths of more than 11,000 people. This makes Christmas the most dangerous of all religious ceremonies, even exceeding the Moslem jihad. (Note to political scrooges: The banning of Christmas seems an unwise career move!).
Escaped Big Cats
Thus far we have only discussed death from Big Cats in captivity. We have not discussed the possibility for fatal mayhem created by Big Cats that have escaped their cages. This remains a possibility and some would argue an inevitability, since animals can and do get away from their owners sometimes. Escapes have happened both to AZA accredited zoos and to private individuals.
The idea of an escaped man-eating lion or tiger seems very menacing and impressive. Hollywood has many times capitalized on this and produced some very sensational and gory productions. However, I must again disappoint the reader with a statistically remote actuality. It seems to be even more rare than that other Hollywood invention, death by quicksand. In our 16-year survey, 1990 to 2006, there was not one recorded death from a Big Cat that had escaped its enclosure. The 8 recorded fatalities in America all resulted in some degree of interaction with the animal while it was caged.
This is explainable as follows:
(1)Escaped Big Cats are less dangerous than caged ones, having an opportunity of retreat. In the rare incidents recorded, escaped Big Cats have never to date preyed on human beings as a food source.
(2) Big Cat escapes rarely happen.
Attempts to re-capture Big Cats have resulted in no recorded injuries to date. The vast majority of the very few Big Cats that have ever escaped have not been “big”, but were “cubs”, obviously under lesser scrutiny of lock-down than adults. The 157 “captive feline incidents” recorded by the Animal Rights group, A.P.I. (Animal Protection Institute), are a mostly misleading assortment of sightings, suspected sightings, and minor injuries, largely from small species like bobcats and servals. I take these examples from their website:
Somers, NY. Pet bobcat escapes from owners home and terrorizes neighborhood rabbit.
You heard right! A traumatized rabbit! My goodness! Bobcats, by the way, are native to the Somers area. They don’t say. Here is another:
Bloomington, IN. Exotic cat is found on doorstep of woman’s home.
The cat is not described further. What did the woman do with the cat, what kind of cat was it? Here is another:
Indiana. Wildcat attacks woman’s car while car is parked. Police suspect wildcat escaped from private home.
The “wild cat” is never described and never seen again. No one knows if it was an angry tabby, a bobcat, or what it was, or if it even happened. There is no locality attached to the incident, only “somewhere in Indiana.”
In all a very amusing list, to the tune of 157 incidents padded over 16 years. Each “incident” is offered uncritically and without further explanation. The authors are clearly grasping at straws.
Attacks by Big Cats through intentional self-harm
Of the scanty human injuries (48) by Big Cats that have been recorded over the last 16 years, all fall into the category of intentional self-harm, since in all cases the victim had the choice of avoiding the animal. These were not acts of predatory stalking by a Big Cat, rather the individuals were interacting with the animals in some way. Four of the 8 recorded deaths over 16 years involved owners and keepers of Big Cats, while 4 involved unsupervised children who were also interacting with them. Poor housing and caging of the animals can be blamed in at least 2 of the recorded deaths, since it allowed children to interact with the animals beyond a reasonable range of safety. Parental judgment was a recurrent problem since it allowed these interactions to take place.
Safety issues regarding unsupervised children were continually erupting during my analysis of the different kinds of accidents encompassed by this study. For example, the vast majority of the 11,472 deaths that involved three-wheeled (all-terrain) vehicles were to unsupervised children. The majority of the 11,840 bicycle related deaths were to children. The 4,800 children who suffocated to death in plastic bags were unsupervised. The probable 8,000 children who drowned during this same 16-year period were also unsupervised at the time of death, as were the roughly 16,000 children who were run over by cars. The same can be said of the nearly 80 children who were killed during handling of fireworks at July 4th celebrations from 1990 – 2006, and the more than 16,900 who were seriously injured. This makes 4th of July only slightly less dangerous to children than Christmas. Amusement must therefore be classed as one of the most costly of all endeavors as regards human life.
The ways that children can die are not remarkably dissimilar from those by which adults meet the same fates, yet certain death injuries seem specifically child related, especially death from suffocation and while operating specialized recreational vehicles, such as go-carts and three-wheelers.
The deaths of children in all accidents are very much higher than adults in all situations, when one considers that childhood represents only about 1/5th of a probable 76-year lifespan. In all cases it is more dangerous to be a child than an adult. Insurance statistics reflect this data, hence a higher premium is charged for a young person than an older one when driving a car.
Conclusions
Caged, escaped, or naturally free-roaming felines do not now nor have they ever posed a significant threat to human life in the United States. Animal Rights Groups such as PETA and their offshoot the “Animal Protection Institute” (API) exaggerate this data, seemingly to promote their crusade to ban the keeping of all wild animals in captivity. Yet of all animals in captivity, domesticated animals cause by far the greatest number of fatalities. Horses, cows, and dogs account for the largest number of injury deaths, to a total of about 188 deaths each year, or roughly 3008 deaths per 16-year period. The vast majority of dog-related deaths during 1990 - 2006 years were to children, with about 416 children killed by their own or other people’s “best friends.” The Center for Disease Control’s Factbook on dog-bite reports the deaths of more than 300 Americans in the years 1979 – 1998. In one year, 1994, more than 800,000 people sought medical care for dog bites; half of them were children under the age of 18. Every 40 seconds someone in the United States seeks medical attention for a dog bite-related injury.