Dale
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I do not think it matters where you are from, people elsewhere have a distorted view of what your part of the world is like. Mostly that is because we all get our view of other parts of the world from television (used to be from books); and what sells, is what grabs attention; and what grabs attention, is the sensational. Where I live, there are cougars all around. I've never seen a cougar, just tracks. They are very shy. They will only attack if you are acting like prey or you are near the cubs. Yet folks from elsewhere are very nervous about "all those mountain lions."
Similarly, Steve Irwin came over here once and did a tour of North America looking for rattlesnakes. (The most priceless moment of that series was when he was squatting, looking into a hole where one had just crawled, when another snake started rattling its tail -- right between his legs! He hammed it up, of course, but his startlement was not entirely feigned.) Judging by the television, you would think that such snakes are everywhere. Yet I grew up in country where rattlers were common, and I saw them only a dozen times or so -- mostly on the road, squished.
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