My feeling is pretty similar to yours, though I am also aware that there are animals that can and will hurt me. For example, for one of the trips I want to take above the arctic circle, standard advice is to carry a shotgun and surround your camp with a portable electric fence to protect from polar bears, since polar bears will actively hunt humans.

But in general I expect animals to not want anything to do with me. For this, I use what I call the “raccoon principle”, which goes like this: Suppose you see a raccoon. It is hissing and growling at you, clearly pissed off. Do you want to fight this raccoon with your bare hands? Probably not - sure, you could almost certantly kill it. But not before it bit the shit out of you, possibly doing significant and permanent damage to your soft tissues and giving you an infection. So understand that for most large animals, you are the raccoon.

I have watched enough memes to know that given the chances, wild animals will attack me.

Im in the UK so basically every wild animal is scared of humans. (Edit : Except geese. Theyre fucking bullies)

If I was in “The Wild” though, like a jungle or Savannah, I would shit my pants 24/7

9 out of 10 if I leave them alone they will leave me alone.

Where I live they mostly mind their own business but from time to time I have to yell to scare away some wild boars just in case, luckily they aren’t used to people and run away pretty easily.

If the animal can physically hurt me, i will keep my distance. E.g. i don’t mess with cows in a field, even though they are likely harmless. I usually have to cross fields when going to fishing spots. During the summer they are full of animals that could EASILY kill me by mistake. Therefore i keep my distance.

Smaller animals and bugs that i know aren’t venomous don’t bother in the slightest.

I like to study what animals are around before I’m in an unfamiliar habitat so I know what to expect. I’m not really afraid of any animals unless the situation calls for it. There’s a number of potentially dangerous animals that live around here, all are incredibly unlikely to ever attack me. The risk of catching Lyme disease from a tick is what really concern me more than any wild animal I might encounter.

I volunteer with wild animals, so I purposely do a lot of things animals may or may not like that most people won’t normally do.

Very few animals will want to hurt you. Animals will do very little they don’t have to do. This comes down to 2 main things: calories are precious, and there is no medical care. If you aren’t food or pose a potential threat, they want nothing to do with you. Wasting calories and getting injuries makes it harder to get a next meal.

The classic fight/flight response has evolved into something more along the lines of fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Animals aren’t dumb, and in almost every way their muscles and abilities are better than yours, so there are multiple options they have, and they will pick what they think is best.

They also have unique personalities, and won’t all react the same. I have more scary squirrels at work than I do raptors.

It is also common to have small songbirds drive off hawks or owls, and the raptors just move on instead of fighting because the energy required and the potential for injury to fight isn’t worth it. If you’re messing with a nest, they may go after you, they may not.

Animals get dangerous when you take away some of their options, like the classic cornered animal. If you take away the option to flee, why wouldn’t they think you’re there to hurt them, and they will hurt you to protect themselves. Most will make noise to scare you so you go away or back off and give them an opening. If you get your hands on them and you are calm, they will often wait to see what you’re going to do.

Learning how animals react to things and seeing how unique their personalities/risk tolerances are is one of my favorite parts of working with them. People act like animals are generic NPCs, but they’ve got unique minds that are the results of their collected experiences, just like ours.

Most will run, some will attack if cornered. Walk along the wind and make human noises and you won’t be bothered.

I’m from the PNW, my life has been spent in the outdoors and I have backpacked alone in the Cascade mountains. I’m of the opinion that wild animals are more frightened of me than I could be of them. I fear encountering a hungry cougar but otherwise I don’t really have any fear of other animals. I don’t want to encounter a momma bear and her cubs nor a mother moose with her calf. Those are two things I would be feeling is dangerous.

But snakes, wolves, or whatever other nasties that I might find in my neck of the woods, don’t really make me scared.

is it hungry? is it desperate? is it horny? does it feel threatened?

if yes, then they are a danger to me.

In Britain we don’t have dangerous wildlife. Only thing close to spicy is the adder, and they’re extremely rare and shy, their homes are all signposted and protected. The most killing animal we have is the cow. Don’t wander into a herd like an idiot, stay away from bulls, and there’s no problems. So it’s a bit jarring to have to worry about animals.

Growing up rural gives one a healthy respect for animals. I once knew a banty rooster who was known to have killed 2 snakes and a hawk going after his hens. I saw that rooster chase grown men and I did not laugh. I would have run from that feathery violence too.

I’ve encountered wild bears while hiking and wasn’t scared. They were just black bears, tho. The smallest and most easily frightened bear. 🤷‍♂️

Anything big enough to be scary is scary. Deer and coyotes.