To Liz my wife and editorial partner who became an expert on findng photos of dangerous animals while working with me on updating this book
Leopard eating its wild prey
Chapter 1 Mammals The Dangerous Cats 1 Which wild cats are the most dangerous The tiger lion leopard and jaguar are probably the most dangerous of the cats Nowadays these four kinds of cats cause probably fewer than two dozen deaths each year Most of the wild cats will avoid people whenever possible But there always seem to be a few individuals that hunt people regularly The wild cats are excellent hunters They are very powerful animals with great speed The African lion charges its prey at forty miles 64 kilometers per hour The cheetah can speed over sixty miles 97 kilometers per hour over level ground The cats are also great leapers The American puma is able to jump to the ground from a height of sixty feet 18 meters All of the cats are able to swim and many can climb trees They have sharp senses can learn quickly and are usually hard to spot in their native surroundings Many of the cats hunt at night which makes it dangerous for people to travel after dark In fact the surprising thing about the big cats is that so few of them become human eaters
