The likelihood of the average American being attacked by a wild animal has been shown to be much less than previously estimated, according to new results from the Slone Digital Survey, operated by Princesstown University astronomers.
Records of attack rates compiled by mammal experts had indicated that a large fraction of deaths caused by wild animals in Africa are due to hippopotamus strikes. New observations by the Princesstown researchers, however, show that there are fewer hippopotamuses than earlier counts indicated.
Using their new data they have extrapolated the figures to obtain a kill rate for inhabitants of North America.

"Although we cannot be sure that our detections were all hippopotamuses - for example some may have been elephants or wilderbeast - we are convinced that our figures represent a much-improved evaluation of the numbers of large gray-brown mammals in Africa" said a spokesman for the team, Dr Neophobius Snobbs. He continued: "While some detractors have criticized us for not including smaller beasts like lions and hyenas in our analysis, so far as we are aware these do not pose a danger to humans."
The team have also dismissed the arguments of public safety experts who point to grizzly bears as being a significant risk. "I've never seen a grizzly bear in Princesstown," countered another member of the team, "whereas I remember seeing a hippopotamus in Central Park Zoo when I was a kid. And that's only a handful of miles from here."
The purpose of the present project was to capitalize on an earlier press release, when much publicity was gained by the team's claim that their detection of a smaller number of main-belt asteroids in the 1-km size range had important implications for the probability of such a projectile hitting the Earth soon. "We were amazed. We never expected the media and the public to be so gullible. Admittedly this is something we know nothing about but, hey, look at all that coverage. So we figured we could pull the same stunt with hippopotamuses"

When asked about polar bears, the Dr Snobbs said that, according to their working definition, white animals cannot be dangerous. "To imagine otherwise would be as silly as thinking that a comet could strike the Earth," he said.
"Clearly this makes no sense. We deal with white animals all the time - cats and mice, mostly - and although a cat may scratch you occasionally, they are not life-threatening." When pressed further, he commented that in any case polar bears live only in parts of Canada, not the United States, and Canadians don't count.

Still other critics have argued that, even if there are a few hippopotamuses in zoos, the hazard they represent is tiny. "This shows a profound ignorance of recent scientific advances" said Snobbs. "Global warming is an established fact. This means that North America will get hotter, and soon will be like the African savannah lands, and so hippopotamuses will flourish in the Midwest." When asked how they would get there, Dr Snobbs said that the time scale involved was some millions of years, over which hippopotamuses would evolve so as to develop wings, just like pigs have now.
"Now we have discounted this absurd notion that bears are dangerous, through our brilliant observations of hippopotamuses, we intend to return to our real interest: pussy cats. These are certainly not dangerous, but they're hugely important. Just think how many cats appear on calendars every year" said the team leader, Professor Felix Catophilus. "Cats are wonderful, and fully justify the billions we persuade governments to spend on feline-related research. At one stage we were a little worried about all this attention being paid to grizzly bear attacks - and, hey, the threat of huge amounts of money being spent on anti-venom to save people bitten by snakes or stung by bees - but now we are confident that attention (and more important, funding) will remain with us pussy-cat lovers."

The Digital Survey gets its name from the fact that one of its major purposes is giving a middle finger to researchers in other areas, by purporting to have uncovered data that detract from the careful work of others.

Contact:
Professor Felix Catophilus: (666) CATS-R-US
Dr Neophobius Snobbs: (911) NO-2-NEOS