Mosquitoes are infamously the world’s deadliest animal, killing up to a million people every year via the diseases they spread, such as malaria and dengue fever.
In the UK, however, our 36 native mosquito species pose little in the way of threat, so they don’t feature in the three-way tie for the title of UK’s deadliest creature.
One of the three that does, is dogs. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, recently added American XL bully dogs to the list of banned breeds after a rise in dog-related deaths.
Numbers were around three per year, but in 2022, 10 people in England and Wales died from dog bite injuries, the tragic result of irresponsible ownership and a trend for breeding bigger, more muscular dogs.
Small can be deadly too, though. Hence bees and wasps also have a claim to the title. For the 0.5 per cent of the population who are allergic to the venom in their stings, the resulting anaphylaxis can be fatal. It causes the death of between two and nine people in the UK every year.
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The final culprit is less obvious. Picture a pastoral scene and it’s hard to imagine that the cattle grazing so peacefully could be deadly, yet cows attack up to 4,000 people in the UK every year.
And around five of those people die from their injuries. Most deaths are among the farming community, but walkers can be at risk too. In the wild, cattle are a prey species, so new mothers are primed to defend their calves.
Most accidents occur when natural boundaries are ignored. Cattle can injure people by knocking them down and trampling or lying on them. The best advice is to keep dogs on leads and give herds of cattle a respectfully wide berth.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Adrianna Gardner, Chelmsford) 'What is the deadliest creature in the UK?'
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