It was another peaceful day on Salona Beach in San Diego County. The sun hung lazilly in the sky, basking the people below in delicious hot rays, tanning their skin and keeping them warm. 8 people practiced for a triathlon in the waters, enjoying themselves without a care in the world. For one of these swimmers however, today would be the end of it all.

For the first time in 50 years, a fatal shark attack ocurred in San Diego County waters. Widely believed to be a Great White, the swimmer was clamped legs-first into the shark's mouth, leaving huge bloody gashes in the legs, resulting in a death from blood loss.


This leads me to reports of other deaths from animals. Aside from the ordinary and expected attacks from creatures such as Lions, Tigers and Bears, there is a whole host of different, bloodthirsty animals out there ready to destroy people who get in there way. Hippopotami are famous for killing in Africa. Indeed, they kill more people than any other animal in the continent, with the exception of man. When someone goes out on the water at the wrong time, such as dawn/dusk, a hippopotamus may well be disturbed, charing out of the war, biting the boat in half and dragging the hapless travellers to the bottom of the lake. Thankfully, it isn't carniverous, so will merely let you drown rather than eating you.

Other deadly animals include female mosquites, which have killed at least 45 billion people, or half the amount that have ever died, through a host of deadly diseases, which includes, but is not limited to: yellow fever; dengue fever; elephantiasis; and of course malaria.

Cape Buffallo, with their razor-sharp horns and sheer mass, kill hundreds of people each year. Elephants, those cute grey lumps, kill at least 500 people each year. The Box Jellyfish has killed over 5500 since 1884.

Yet perhaps the most surpising killer animal is the ordinary marmot. Also known as the groundhog, this small, unassuming member of the squirrel family is know to tear apart and consume lost travellers in the mountains. It is beleved that they kill up to 3000 people in Austria alone each year. Of course, this is complete rubbish. Marmots kill in the similar method to mosquitos-by spreading disease. More specifically, Bubonic Plague, better known as the Black Death. All the Plague epidemics that occured in Europe came from Mongolian marmots spreading the disease with travlellers, and of course the Mongol Invaders of the 14th Century. At least 1 billion people have died from Marmots. So the next time your'e in Pennsylvania for Groundhog Day, keep well back from the murdering rodent.