SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah -- A black bear wandering Park City neighborhoods at night is enough to cause a ruckus, with police and wildlife officers scrambling to capture the animal--thus keeping it, and homeowners, safe.
But it turns out bears don't kill many Americans, and the animals that do kill more people are animals people are more used to seeing.
Utah's two biggest wild predators are mountain lions and black bears, but the Centers for Disease Control said those animals are unlikely to kill a human.
Mountain lions kill, on average, one American a year.
Bears of all kinds--black, grizzly, polar--kill an average of one American every 2 years.
It turns out horses either throw people, step on people, or fall on people enough to kill about 20 Americans every year.
Household dogs kill about 31 people a year.
And, the biggest culprit when it comes to animal-caused deaths is one familiar to Utahns: Bees. The insects are responsible for an average of 53 deaths in the U.S. every year.
The statistics are all about the number and proximity of the animals, as many of the predators on the list don’t often make contact with humans. In other words: Don't take this article as an excuse to pet a bear!
