this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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Who started the assumption that herbivores were all sweet harmless cuddle bugs anyhow? Because they had obviously never interacted with a large herbivore before.
Most people aren't ever really exposed to nature. You can have a cuddly dairy cow, but that's not universal. Most encounters people have are going to be with animals that are docile and used to human interactions.
Also it is a little counter intuitive at first. Predators will retreat from a fight of it's not worth the effort. Prey doesn't retreat once the fight starts, because it's literally life or death for them.
Far from universal. About 20 people die per year in the USA from attacks by cows. They are huge powerful animals that don't generally don't give a shit about people (they're used to them, for the most part) but if they decide you are a threat to them or their calf, you're fucked.
There's also a huge difference between beef cows and dairy cows.
My understanding: dairy cows interact with humans on a regular basis, for dairy stuff. Beef animals don't interact with humans nearly as much.
People are gored by bison at Yellowstone every year. When I visited a few years ago, the rangers were actively having to tell people to avoid an elk who, with his harem, had decided to hang out in Fort Yellowstone for a couple days. People are dumb, or don't think "wow that's a 600+ lb animal the size of a minivan".
Both of them attack. It's just that carnivores treat it as you owe them money.
And herbivores treat it as they owe you money.