——

 Young visitors recoil from a snake held by a refuge biologist at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.  Andrea Brophy/USFWS

In the course of greeting tens of thousands of visitors a year, Rangers on US National Wildlife Refuges* encounter many such exaggerated fears on the part of their guests. They know which natural–world denizens invariably make some people flinch or go ewww.  One thing they’ve noticed: Whether it's because today’s visitors tend to live more indoor lives than past generations or watch too many TV survival shows, fears of nature are flourishing — in all ages.

"We're seeing more kids sheltered and afraid," says Ashley Inslee, a biologist at Bosque del Apache Refuge in New Mexico. "Even college kids interested in conservation haven’t been out hunting, fishing, hiking. They've seen TV shows or National Geographic and think being outdoors is cool, but it can be uncomfortable at first."

Some fears sparked by active imaginations or fuzzy senses of geography are fairly easy to dispel, such as concerns about encountering zebras or lions at Tualatin River Refuge near Portland, Oregon, (neither are found there) or wolves and alligators at Great Swamp Refuge in New Jersey (where neither roam).

"Children are always nervous about alligators in the swamp," says Dave Sagan, Visitor Services Specialist at Great Swamp Refuge. "Once they find out that we do not have them this far north and I tell them there are no venomous snakes and that the scariest thing on the refuge is a plant with three leaves (poison ivy), many fears seem to go away."

Different tactics are called for at Florida’s J.N. "Ding" Darling Refuge, where alligators are star attractions. "There should be a natural fear we have of them, and they of us; it's a good thing to be fearful of a large predator like an alligator," says Supervisory Refuge Ranger Toni Westland. But she puts visitors' fears in perspective. "We tell them we're not going to have alligators jumping out of bushes. It's safe. But it's only safe because we respect wild animals and don't feed them."

Pop culture and myth sustain many nature fears. Only in movies do bats drink human blood or fly in your face. Still, Sagan says, "inevitably, in every group, there's someone who says, "Aaahh, bats. They’re gonna land in my hair." I explain, 'No, they're swooping down to eat insects. They can carry rabies, yeah, but we don't handle bats …. If you see a bat, you're really lucky, because there are so few of them. One bat can eat 5,0000 mosquitoes a night.' "

Fear of nature is not a kids-only phenomenon. "The older they are, the harder it is," says Sagan. "I have had the most trouble with adult chaperones." 

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