Crocodile is one of the few animals that absolutely terrify me. I will never visit Australia because of it.
Put me down as “Will treat dangerous wildlife with a healthy respect” but it’s not a deal-breaker at all. We have our own dangerous wildlife in the USA. The main reason I haven’t been is you’re on the other side of the freakin’ Earth and airfare is expensive and airports can be a big hassle these days.
Depends on whether we’re packing heat. 
Are you serious Giles? :dubious:
o/ There was a redback on the toilet seat... o/
Given that Australia/NZ is as far away from me as you can get whilst still remaining on the planet then I think you can chalk me up as another “too far, no thanks”. Which is kind of a shame as I have family over there, but there are way waaaaaaaaaaaay too many places I want to see in Europe before I start thinking further afield, and when I do I still have a lot of Asia and the Middle East that I’d rather do first.
Alligators kill as many if not more people in the US than are killed here by crocs every year.
You live in St Louis, which is about 1000km from alligator range, but you will never visit Australia because of crocodiles even though most of Australia is much, much further from the range of crocodiles than a mere 1000km.
How can you tolerate living where you do?
swings head left and looks at the one on her wall
I’m with kambuckta. How can you not have ever seen one? 
waves at kambuckta - one Riverinean to another
Apologies: I looked at the Wikipedia article, found them described as 250-300 mm, and thought, “I’ve never seen a spider that big!” However, I have seen spiders like that, but just one tenth of that size. They’re quite pretty, and not really frightening at all (to me, at least).
National Geographic Since 1948 only 18 people have been killed by alligators. That isn’t even a good weekend for crocs. Though rumors say after the new Orleans hurricane they were munching the bodies floating around.
Huh? I can’t say that I’ve ever heard that your wildlife was inherently more dangerous than the beasties over here. We’ve also got poisonous snakes and large carnivores. As well as really large herbivores who could kick your skull in if so inclined.
The only reason I haven’t visited Australia is lack of money. If that weren’t an issue I’d be booking my flight now.
::kam stands on roof and waves back:: 
(then runs inside very quickly to get outta the heat, urghhhh).
It’s a similiar situation to bears in the US, the usual story of people not doing the right thing and feeding them, or leaving food easily accesable. Despite plain and obvious signs and warnings about the danger.
So the dingo’s come to associate people = food. And from there it’s a not a big step for the dingoes to go from:
people = food to
people are food.
Adults don’t have over much to fear to be honest, but children are just about the right size for those enboldened dingo’s to go ooh lunch!! There were two different incidents ~2-3 years back of young children being mauled to death.
What surprises me is the number of people saying “It’s so expensive to visit Australia!!Eleventy!Shift+One!”
A return flight from Sydney to Los Angeles at the moment is around AUD $1200 or so, and even a return flight from LA-Sydney is under USD$2,000 on QANTAS- no doubt it’d be significantly cheaper on Virgin Pacific or Delta if you shopped around.
I realise these aren’t insignificant amounts of money, splitting the difference and calling it $1500 return doesn’t strike me as being unreasonably expensive either, especially not for the distance being travelled.
Several years ago, my wife, my sister-in-law (an Australian) and I were walking along a paved path in a park. They were ahead by about 50 feet as I ambled along. When I glanced to the side of the path, I saw a large brown snake just a few feet off the track. I called out to my SIL. “Hey, did you see this snake you just walked by?”
She came back quickly, and told me it was a Brown snake and I agreed…of course pretending it was the color she referred to…but knowing it was actually a very poisonous snake. We left the snake undisturbed, and it acted in kind.
My brother and his wife live in rural NW Victoria, and coexist with the wildlife well, except for rabbits. It does help that both of us have biology backgrounds.
So…no, I don’t avoid Oz because of the critters. They aren’t nearly as bad as the long flight to get there from the US.
Perhaps it’s because you guys probably have to pay a lot of money to fly almost anywhere, being way down there and all. 
That is insanely expensive to me.
I’d visit despite the critters. Had a friend who did diving down there some time ago, and the bugs were impressive! But I believe he had the same scorpion/spider concerns when he was in Texas, so…I’d rather visit Australia than Texas.
It’s about the same price as a 40" LCD HD TV here- so it’s not cheap in a hey-why-not-jump-on-a-plane-and-have-a-weekend-somewhere sense, but I’d hardly call it an extravagant or insanely expensive price for a 12 hour flight on a reputable airline to a foreign country. YRMV, evidently.
I’ve had an unreasonable fear of Australian wildlife since seeing a kangaroo with boxing gloves 
Did you mistake it for a giant mouse and get laughed at because you let a mouse beat you up?