Don Freeman proclaimed:
"Rodney Long" wrote in message
...

Don Freeman wrote:


Doing a search on "aggressive" and "cottonmouth" I find a lot of
disparity in opinions on wither the cottonmouth is actually aggressive or
not. Looking closer at the sources I find that the more reliable ones (as
opposed to joe blows blog site) tend to support the position that its
aggressive nature is not deserved.

Man that sounds like the shark huggers (naturalist) who claim bull sharks
are not aggressive, they mistake humans for fish.

A couple of naturalist were proving that very fact a couple of years ago,
in knee deep water, with bull sharks all around them, and guess what? one
of them got nailed! on camera, yet they still claimed they are not
aggressive


Well duh, and if you walk into a pit of even the most timid snakes you are
bound to annoy at least one of them.


California banned cougar hunting a few years back, and now people are
dying, while they are jogging in their neighborhoods


Oh yeah, they're killing us left and right out here, can't walk to the
corner market without being attacked. That's why there are so many humvees
and other forms of SUVs in my neighborhood: to protects us from all the
unwarranted feline attention.

For a little perspective:
http://california.sierraclub.org/mou...on/safety.html

"Your risk of being injured or killed by a mountain lion is infinitesimal.
There have been only 13 fatal mountain lion attacks in all of North America
in the last 100 years. Eleven of the fatal attacks occurred in western
states and provinces where trophy hunting of lions is allowed. According to
the Department of Fish and Game's own records, in the last 20 years more
than 85 people have died and 700 people have been injured in hunting
accidents in California. For every person killed by a mountain lion in the
last century, 300 people have been killed by bees,. 750 people have died
when their cars collided with deer, 1200 people have been killed by
lightning, and more than 1100 people were killed in hunting-related
accidents. Hunting presents a much greater threat to public safety than
mountain lions."

In other words, your risk of being injured or killed by a mountain lion
is orders of magnitude smaller than it is of being mistaken for an
aggressive snake and being offed by a trusty .22 handgun.


My feelings on the matter is from personal experience, not based on what I
have read somewhere, and I would bet Joe Blow's Blog site is based on the
same thing, his personal experiences

More likely to have been based on apocryphal/anecdotal incidences. Which,
ironically enough, turns this thread on-topic for this group.

Never attribute that to folklore which is more obviously explained by
abject total and willful ignorance.