Dr. Ted Stankowich

That's right.

Hiding, climbing, throwing things.

Absolutely.

Throwing objects, threatening animals for sure.

When our hair stands up on our body, that's called pyloerection.

That's a common thing to make yourself look bigger.

Animals do that all the time when they get angry or when they get stressed, they make their hair stand up.

Increased heart rate, even sweating to help make your hands a little bit tacky to climb trees better.

So those are all the same things that we would have seen in our ancestors for sure.

I've never been attacked.

I've been sprayed by a skunk once.

The very first day I was trapping a skunk on a release.

I scared it while I was in a trap, waiting to leave a trap, and it sprayed my hand as I was trying to open the trap again.

But six years after that, I never got sprayed again.

So as long as you respect them and can read their behavior, they don't want to spray you.

I tell people, if you've been sprayed by a skunk, you've probably...

You know, tripped over it, didn't see it, scared it, or you've done something really dumb because they will tell you well beforehand that they're going to spray you.

Dogs don't listen to those same behaviors that we can.

Have I ever been attacked by an animal?

No.