Well, I think clarification is in order, in or out of the zoo I think bears are the most dangerous wild animals in England.
Otherwise are we talking about killing humans?, maiming humans?, carrying off children? ??? or just dangerous?
I’ll stick with bears. (In the zoo) (without further clarification)
The pigeons in Trafalgar square are scary!
Well I was talking about wild bears but I can see how urban bears might be a concern according to a Mr. Chris Robin.
I can’t BELIEVE no one has mentioned the Rabbit of Caerbannog! What kind of Brits are we dealing with here anyway if they can’t quote chapter and verse of Monty Python?
since man can be defind as a type of animal, and th uk is not free of murder. then humans are most dangerous animal over there in the uk.
I think elephants kill more people than any other kind of animal in zoos in the UK
Had lunch with my boss (English) and colleague (Irish) a few days ago and the conversation came around to animals, via squirrels and a raccoon invasion of summer cabin tale.
“So…you guys don’t have raccoons? Or skunks? Or opposums? Or amadillos? (this last one was a joke, of course) Or elk?”
I had fun thinking of animals all day and I’d pop my head in my Irish friend’s cubicle and shout “Groundhogs!” “Chipmunks!” etc. Seems pretty much the only thing you can road-kill over there are hedgehogs. And when I motioned a varmint the size of a porcupine, the English lady laughed and showed me something half the size of her plate. Huh. Serious lack of critters over there.
We do have elk in the UK.
OK; now that I think about it, I probably asked about moose.
The most dangerous creature (occassionally) found in England is Spike Milligan.
A fiendish beasty, he has left a trail of people who have died of hysterical laughter behind him for decades.
His only known benefit to the world was his role in Adolf Hitler’s downfall.
Adolf Hitler’s only known benefit to the world was his role in Spike Milligan’s downfall.
He has been known to associate with goons. (Milligan, I mean. Not Hitler. Goons are funny, after all. Nothing funny about Hitler. Nossiree. Won’t catch me refering to Shicklegruber in any of my jokes. Nope. Not a Chance. Not me, bub.)
Where? As far as I am aware, the species of wild deer in the UK are Red, Fallow, Roe and the funny little one whose name I can’t remember, but came from an escaped foreign species.
OMG - re the rabbit - I once saw one of those, too. Think the country should be put on Red Alert?? 
There are ticks over here … dunno about in woodland, but I was forever pulling ticks out of our Border Collie after long rambles in the countryside. Not sure if they carry disease (Lymes?) as they do in the US, though.
And I’ve seen a large house spider hang onto a friend’s finger with its fangs when he tried to put it out the window … :eek:
Julie
Remembered it: Muntjac.
And a very few Pere David’s deer, apparently.
[hijack] Why Eburacum, not Eboracum? Google finds hits for them both, but three times as many for Eboracum. (Selby, myself)[/hijack].
Actually yopu’re right no elk in Britain, though I’m sure I read there were the other day.
I agree with you about the ticks - I’ve had dogs get ticks from walks too. They don’t seem as common as in the US, and they’re larger than some of the US ones, which makes them easier to find. I also don’t believe they carry Lymes disease in the UK.
Likewise, I agree with you about the spiders. We don’t officially have any non-pet poisonous spiders living in the UK (where poisonous is defined as capable of doing serious damage to, or killing, a human), but the spiders definitely bite. I got bitten on the ankle by one that was hiding in my bed & it caused a strange yellowish blister about 3/4" across that lasted for about 2-3 weeks, and left discoloured skin there for about a year.
Also we do get some quite large spidrs - some of the ones that would come in my house were about 4" across, including the legs, and fast little buggers. Fortunately, I’d usually only see ones that big about 3 or 4 times a year, maximum. So far, I haven’t seen any that big in the MidWest (& I hope it stays that way ;)).
This link (no pictures for the squeamish) talks about the Wasp Spiders now living in Kent and mentions scorpions now resident & breeding successfully due to the midler winters:
http://www.arachnophiliac.com/burrow/news/beauty_and_the_beasties.htm
Seriously, the “Wasp Spider” is a pretty ordinary looking orb-weaving spider.
It could be a confusion in popular terminology which exists for members of the deer family in Europe as opposed to North America.
You will also sometimes see statements like “The elk is the largest member of the deer family.”. Whereupon everybody in North America says “hey, what about the moose?”.
The trouble is that Alces alces lives in both Europe and North America. In Europe, it is sometimes called an “elk”, a term used in North America for a different animal, less confusingly called the wapiti.
Alces alces under both names:
http://www.ultimateungulate.com/moose.html
Now, that danged North American elk, er, wapiti. This is Cervus elaphus, which is also the species for the European “red deer”, though the European and North American populations are usually given different subspecies names:
http://www.wilddeer.co.uk/red-deer.htm
So, it is possible that you read a statement that there were “elk” in Britain, meaning what a North American would call an elk, and somebody in the UK would call a “red deer”. You will note that amarone listed “red” among the species in Britain when correcting you. There are no “elk” in Britain if you mean “moose”.
Then, to top it off, we have Rangifer tarandus - the caribou. Europeans insist on calling the critter a “reindeer”, leading to confusion when you see statements like “The {reindeer|caribou} is the only member of the deer family in which the females normally have antlers.”
Aren’t there still wolves in Scotland? Also, bears?