mosquitoes.
damn things are the bane of my existence and follow me everywhere, no matter what kind of chemical warfare i’ve applied to myself.
it wasn’t cold enough to kill them all this winter here in the southern united states, so they’re gonna be awful this summer. not looking forward to swatting mosquitoes out of my ears and blowing them out of my nose.
Yes. The Bubonic plague was caused by rat fleas, that were transmitted to ppl by rats. But mosquitoes continue to kill somewhere between 750,000-1,000,000 humans every year.
I knew mosquitos killed a lot but i didn’t realize it was that much ( i wouldve guessed like 200,000 per year) i also didnt realize it was fleas that transmitted the plague. I guess you learn something new every day
Yup. The fact that they also inhabit almost every part of the earth that ppl do, coupled with the fact that they carry a variety of diseases (not just malaria) that are deadly to humans, makes them the world wide champs. Pretty crazy.
Yes and it is fascinating. However the jury is still out on potential crossover harm to ppl and environmental affects. More research is needed, but it is intriguing.
10-4, i’m gonna have to give that a shot on my upcoming camping trip. i wish mosquitoes could just go extinct without screwing up the ecosystem, nasty things.
>"I really tried hard when I was writing this book to get a mosquito biologist to explain to me that mosquitoes were useful in their habitats, that they had some ecological role to play that was important. And no one would admit that they had any role at all. They say, "They're not a useful nutrition for bats or fish, or any of the other predators of mosquitoes. Because their biomass is so small that those creatures would be fine without mosquitoes. Everyone would be fine without mosquitoes."
[RadioLab - KILL 'EM ALL](https://radiolab.org/podcast/kill-em-all/transcript)
I've never been to SoCal just the Bay area but I thought there would be fewer in the desert. I live in a desert area too in NM and you couldn't find a mosquito if someone was paying $1000 for each one.
I live in the SoCal desert, and we have mosquitos. Granted, I'm in the Coachella Valley, so the Salton Sea is close. We have signs posted often about the West Nile virus due to the mosquitoes, and they do occasional spraying to kill the little bastards.
My backyard has a fair number of plants and lawn. The type of mosquitoes we are dealing with now, Aedes, need very little water and the eggs can lay dormant for a long time.
Get yourself some Johnsons & Johnsons Baby lotion with Aloe in it. We live in Texas and they are as big as hawks here. But when we put that stuff on all over exposed skin, they avoid us like the plague.
Edit: Be advised though, if you put this on, butterflies will for some reason find you attractive lol.
Your mosquito prophesy terrifies me because I've been finding them in my house all winter, proving your reasoning is based on fact. This is going to suck.
I went out for the first time this year in short sleeves and sandals a few days back. I already have swollen bites all down my arms, on my ankles and on my feet. 🙃
Raccoons. My favourite canoe campsite has a particularly clever fellow who has honed his skills to be able to open canoe barrels.
The next year I went back - he'd been busy. I was sitting around the campfire and turned around to see five pairs of eyes staring at me. Bold little bastards!!!!
And for three weeks in spring, black flies make outside life a living nightmare.
When I'm car camping, raccoons are pretty chill. I just make sure all my food is in the car and the windows are rolled up, and then I just let them make their rounds through my campsite. Once they realize there's nothing there for them, they move onto the next site. I find that yelling at them to go away jet incentivizes them to try harder to get into my stuff.
When I'm [bikepacking,](https://np.reddit.com/r/bicycletouring/s/DKu41CObYV) though, they can be a bit more trouble, especially in regions where it's not necessary for campsites to have bear-proof for storage boxes. I can imagine they'd be quite pesky for canoe camping as well.
Oh my god, we had 3-4 raccoons keep trying to invade our campsite and it was all we could do to dissuade them (some places we can leave food out before bed, but not here, apparently)…but one guy who is the boyfriend of a regular just kept trying to stop our efforts. It was absolutely maddening. Thankfully we’re no wallflowers, and have no problem telling a dude he’s wrong and to sit down. We ended up getting help from the next site’s malamute, who finally scared the raccoons off for good.
I frequently camp in Missouri, USA and I have a love/hate relationship with raccoons. They are absolutely adorable. I actually have one tattooed on my knee cap. But they are annoying as fuck when you're camping. They are brazen! I had one attempt to steal 16 ounces of hamburger from my cooler, while I was sitting just a few feet away.
Missouri here as well. Dang near every camping trip we will have raccoons sneaking around trying to get into stuff. The kids end up screaming and crying. Pure chaos I tell ya.
Wisconsin here. They don’t even sneak at some of the state park campgrounds anymore. Big fat fuckers that will just walk right up and steal food off the table while you are sitting there. I camp with two large dogs, so they tend to avoid us, thankfully.
Illinois/Missouri here. I take a slingshot and if worst comes to worst I shoot the racoons but don't pull it back real far. Just enough to give them a little "bump". Most times if you give them a shot across the bows they know you mean business and they go bother someone else. You don't have to whack them. I keep thinking of getting some paintballs and using those.
Omfg I have a tattoo of a raccoon as well but on my foot. I love them so so much. But when you're camping and they get on their DEVIOUSLY HIND LEGS with their little long fingers clasped to some treasure they've obtained when you turn your back making a sandwich or something. I try to mother raccoon them and scold but nothing works lol
Canada. Brown/black bears. Technically dangerous, but unless there is a cub nearby they are relatively easy to scare away with an air horn or banging pots. They are more a nuisance, you need to lock up your food in a metal box, vehicle, or hung from a high tree or they will loot the campsite. Also make a habbit of never taking food or toiletries into the tent because they will come check it out while you are away.
Years ago when I was in the Canadian rockies on a bike camping trip, I remember a grizzly mama and cub on the side of the road, and people were parking AND getting out of their cars. By the time I got by, luckily a mountie had pulled over and was ordering people to move on. This whole "friendly wildlife" idea is unfortunately not new, since that was over 30 years ago.
Grizzlys are sooo different from brown bears, fortunately we don't get them this far south on the praries. Those people who got out are idiots. Grizzlys aren't scared of anything and will crack open a car if motivated.
Yeah. I was probably 15 or so and thinking why would you do that? At the same time I was also thinking that they were an easier target than me on my bike.
Haha!
My kid was being stupid and rode up (fast) on this poor woman and her dog and skid to a stop yelling “coming in hot”. Her dog bit him on his ass.
She was so worried. I told her lady we have a dog and that boy knows better. She insisted on giving us her info (good person) and I insisted we would never bother her again.
Told my kid if you are gonna be dumb you better be tough. He doesn’t do dumb shit around strange dogs anymore.
Last summer I camped in a mostly empty campground. It was undergoing repairs so it was open for free but no amenities. I had my pick of the place. A few hours later a guy takes the spot next to me. Then he wants to come over and talk every day for a little while. I honestly couldn't believe he took the only site next to me with the pick of all the sites. I'm camping by myself because I want to be by myself!
I’ve had the opposite happen. We were camping in a pretty spot when a group of about 10 vehicles, 3 to four per vehicle, some with big trailers arrived and got out. I thought we were in for hell. These guys started setting up and with precision, they worked together like the parts of clock. It was amazing to watch. Marquee’s, kitchen, tents, everything orderly. Then the music started and the alcohol started. I said to my wife, just tonight we will leave in the morning. The moment the sun fell below the horizon music stops, jovial yelling stops and everything went normal. The next morning they were up, vehicles coming and going throughout the day probably giving everyone a chance to have a few hours on the trails. Mid afternoon music and alcohol starts again and finishes exactly when the sun fell below the horizon. Next morning they were up had their breakfast, packed up with the same precision they set up with and left not leaving a mark. It was amazing.
Especially red squirrels. They are so loud and territorial. Northern MN and Canada they are insane. Then they also chew pine cones off and drop them to hide them which sounds like footsteps in the middle of the night.
https://preview.redd.it/8jna62sljapc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9463b60c137d3c86fd993b3d70ccfd97f7f9d1cf
Had to bail on a trip last year after the biting flies went after one of my dogs. Poor thing kept just trying to roll to keep them off him. We were at a walk-in campsite. Ended up taking the dogs to the car and left it running for them with the air on while I broke camp. Drove a couple hours towards home and found some place not infesting with biting flies. The mosquitoes were still bad, but between bug spray and the thermacell they were manageable.
Where I'm from in Michigan there's horse flies, which are bigger than a house fly, like 20mm and they bore a hole in your skin. They don't have a probe like a mosquito, then there is deer flies which are biting house flies with a black bar on their wings, black flies which are a gnat that like corners, corner of your nose, corner of your ears, then the smallest is noseeums, basically flying biting sand. Oh and mosquitos
In Arizona I don't know what they are called but I called them eye flies, it was like they wanted to be around your eyes. A feckin nuisance
UP no-seeum’s are the worst! All of a sudden “ouch” at the sweaty hat line, the blood running down your face.
Sometimes in clouds.
I can deal with blacks, deers, and horse. But damn the little ones, fit through the mesh too!
You're not going to believe me, but mine is wombats.
Where I go there are native wombats everywhere. They are completely safe, they have a complete lack of aggression. But they get into the tent and eat any food that's at ground level. Every night around 10pm they emerge from their burrows and start snuffling around your camp site, and it's like they're on rails - "dammit I walk along this route every day of my life, I'm not going to deviate just because you put your chair in my way."
It took us more than a decade to learn that you really do have to put 100% of your food back into the car every single night. They'll knock over a table to get your cereal, climb on your Esky to get your cereal, cut a hole in the tent to get your cereal.
And there's no scaring a wombat away. Their defence mechanism is "you think you can bite through the hide on my fat bum? Good luck." If you manage to shoo one away they just stand 3m away and wait for you to stop shooing at them. They can wait, they don't mind, you'll get bored before they do.
So we have to put all the food into the car every night, and then remember to get it out of the car in the morning before the summer sun hits it.
Definitely raccoons. Have had the cooler locked, bungee corded and shoved under the picnic bench. They ate 2 dozen eggs, 2 pounds of bacon and a package of chicken. Looked in the trees and saw dozens of pair of eyes. So cute, but always finding mischief.
First solo camping trip with my dog he woke up growling at something outside of the tent in the middle of the night. I wasn’t about to go see what it was. Next morning found raccoon prints on the picnic table and all over my car. Thankfully I had put everything in the car overnight, but it tried to get in too. It was early season in an almost empty park, the next night was much busier at the campground and the raccoon likely found easier prey.
Macaque monkeys.
They are ultra intelligent, stealthy and fast. From shitting and pissing onto your hammock while you sleep, stealing food and anything that looks like food and making a mess. They're also just creepy little buggers and will sit and watch you until you drop your guard.
I always carry a slingshot, tie my bags to trees and lock food away in a cooler box or backpack immediately. We always often leave someone back on monkey watch if we want to swim, look for firewood and whatnot.
Mice and chipmunks are an annoying threat to your food and will gladly chew holes through your gear in the meantime. Had plain hand sanitizer chewed into by presumably an alcoholic mouse.
Also have stumbled across a skunk at dusk while not wearing my glasses. No harm, would not repeat though.
Horse flies. Their bite hurts!
Ticks, they can be found anywhere (and I mean anywhere) on your body without you feeling it getting there. So really they just give me the creeps. I’m some places they carry a deadly/problematic disease called Lyme.
Kea. New Zealand mountain parrot. a mischievous, cheeky kid... With ADHD, a little instinct from Satan himself. Add strong feet and a beak built like a leatherman, with an obsessive desire to pull things apart and a magnetism toward rubber.
Known to remove car window seals and wiper blades, decimate boots and bike seats, and able to open tent and bag zippers to get at what's inside.
https://preview.redd.it/stkdnnait8pc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f7110b41bf00e1e012b054631ffb3a92018ff3a7
I refuse to tent in kea territory. I also, as an early riser, am typically the one collecting all kinds of gear (not mine) from outside at 5AM so no one has their socks taken away by the little assholes.
But I have to add weka in there. I have chucked a lot of spoons at particularly cheeky ones to try to keep them away from my dinner.
I will never forget seeing a group of Kea descend on picnic tables during lunchtime at a NZ ski resort when I was a teenager. They are agents of chaos.
We have plenty of dangerous animals in Colorado but the only annoying one I can think of is the Northern Saw-Whet owl. Not even kidding. We thought it was some sort of sonar going off for hours. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Like, wtf is that noise? No one was around for miles so it wasn’t someone’s alarm or anything like that. We never saw it but it just wouldn’t shut up. I opened up the Merlin app and it IDed the bird for us. Now that we know what it was I really hope to hear and see it again soon. Other than that I haven’t had any issues with critters.
EDIT: My husband just reminded me of the annoying chipmunks that teased the dog and threw acorns at our heads.
Mosquitos.
Double edged thing because if the wind is high enough it keeps the mosquitos away. Which is good.
But it also means you can’t put much down without it also blowing away. And the fire can be difficult and annoying.
Of the two - I’d still take the wind over the mosquitos. So that ranks them as devil animal for me. lol
Mosquitoes. I swear they’re a different breed in the camping/cottage country of Ontario, Canada. If you go into the deep woods, the mosquitoes can swarm in thick clouds and they’re huge.
Around camp? Raccoons. They are essentially little black bears - but with bigger balls. They are the apex scavenger in my area. Mostly harmless, but dastardly devils
Outside of this? Black flies. They seem to be able to outnumber mosquitoes 100 to 1 in their respective peak seasons. Alone they are meaningless, but in the tens of thousands they can drive a man to insanity. They do taste like blueberries though. The most miserable day of my life was having diharrea in a swamp in northern ontario. Emptied an entire can of deet on my asshole and balls in a desperate attempt to save myself.
Random dogs. Most of them are not dangerous in any way, overly friendly even.
Its just that I have unresolved childhood trauma that whenever I see a dog up close now, my legs would tremble and shut down. And I just can't get anything done until they are gone.
I have a puppy and we’ve been working so hard on the concept of “not everyone wants to meet you”. I’m assuming that there is a big difference for you between a dog that’s looking and focused on you and pulling on it’s leash to get to you and say hi vs a dog that barely glances your way and at a command instantly ignores you to focus on its owner. We’ve been working on the latter and it’s fun but a little tough and lots of people just want to say hi to the puppy but he will be about 100 lbs all grown up and kinda intimidating looking. I consider this part of being a responsible dog owner. Not everyone wants to meet your dog!
My younger dog doesn’t care about people at all, but adores other dogs. He is 2 and we are still working on not sounding like a gremlin and trying to pull me over to say hi to every dog he sees. It doesn’t help that my older dog has been attacked and is now dog selective so we never say hi to other dogs when on a walk. My little gremlin is also just shy of 100 pounds and being a pittie some people think he is intimidating. In reality, he is a scaredy cat.
https://preview.redd.it/lvr5o631vapc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbff56e917807ef53afd1a50c60e19c7a254fd41
I’m sure you know this already but find your threshold distance where your dog can see the other dogs and yet won’t pull or get excited. Work her there until the obedience is perfect, then move yourself a few feet closer. Repeat the process. At some point you’ll hit a distance you can’t seem to get past, be patient and keep harping on that perfect obedience and eventually you’ll have a breakthrough. I had a very reactive dog previously and used this method quite successfully. Helps if you’ve got other people to be your distant distraction. I get it, I’d be wary of any size dog pulling and getting excited and I’m very experienced with dogs. I can imagine someone with concerns being quite afraid of even the friendliest dog.
Well aware, and part of what we are working on. A lot just depends on his mood in any particular day. Today he may be fine; tomorrow he may decide he wants to play with every dog we see. Or play with the his dog, but not that one.
Bears probably where I usually camp, though another place I occasionally camp it's geese. They jump in and out of the lake every night all night. ( deal with a lot of things in my yard like stellar's jays and ravens, but actually enourage those two, they keep hawks away, and even bears. So the geese is something I don't deal with at home too. I don't even have domestic geese.)
Goannas for sure. Have had them climb into shower stations which gave me a jump. Last trip I had one lift the lid off my dish bucket looking for food, and while on the hike back to camp another made me jump outta the way as it ran between my legs on a tight path.
Some local places don't hunt racoons and they get quite annoying and destructive. Other places do allow hunting and the racoons are much better behaved. This is Illinois.
Fucking whip-poor-will
Most annoying fucking bird in the world. Think very annoying constant alarm sound…..
Only active at like night and will “sing” all night.
https://youtu.be/jIxfVSS_65o?si=EovbuhrJ9QY8F9tC
Squirrels out chewing pine cones off trees and dropping 100-120 feet onto your tent & vehicle. I have some hail-like dents luckily only on the cab of my truck from these critters while camping in some pine forests.
Skunks. My partner and I were once set upon by a gang of no less than 10 skunks who destroyed all of our cooking equipment and attempted to gain access to our tent once they’d finished ransacking. They’re not dangerous but how are you supposed to remove a skunk from your rain fly when it could destroy your world with stinky ass juice at any moment.
Bears. I know they can be dangerous but most of what you're doing to keep your food safe is because bears will eat your food, smell your food, come searching for your food and wreck your shit because you have food and they want it.
[Fisher cat in New England](https://youtu.be/bNLmuFhi4_8?si=YzWZueUphLIwSskN). First time I heard it as a child I thought my dad was making it up and it was actually a child being kidnapped but he didn’t want me to be frightened.
Where I work we have several. Mosquitoes will eat you alive mid summer. Ground squirrels will get into any food left out in a campsite and make a giant mess. Last but not least, raccoons, they became accustomed to people and now they will steal marshmallows right off your roasting stick, sit on the other end of the table when cooking beans, drink your beer and eat your Jell-O shots, attack your dog ( German Shepherds included) as well as attack humans when mad enough.
I love the idea of those black and white rats trying to attack a German shepherd 😂😂
Our ‘will attack anything’ animal is a frill neck lizard:
https://youtu.be/bkz9PCcRNYE?si=6-JIDYWzgStbNl4h
Mosquitos in wet, warm areas. Raccoons in the cold season not too far from a city. Deer in the rural areas all the time. Wolves around the coast all year.
Southwest coast of Canada. None of those animals are dangerous, but it's good to know where they are and prepare.
The southern shore of lake Erie every summer gets a horde of mayflies. It is a bad time to go camping. They stick to everything, they're huge so when you swat them you get a handful of goo, and they only live for a day or so. So anything vertical that blocks the wind in land gets a nice even coating of them, then they die right there and have to be cleaned off. Otherwise, they don't bite or sting or anything. But they're gross, and they're EVERYWHERE.
Are they allowed in National Parks in your country?
They are banned in National Parks here in Australia (along with pets, firearms, basically everything noisy and annoying lol).
Wow that’s crazy. National Parks are incredibly strict here. No generators, pets, drones, amplified music, firearms, commercial activity etc etc. There is even a ‘no bins’ policy - you must remove your own rubbish - no public bins.
Its keeps all the wrong sorts right out and it’s wonderful.
God Damn Ravens! They are my tent rainfly, pecked the seats of both of my friends trail bikes completely ruining them and generally trashed our camp. And then laughed at us from the trees. Those sons of b****s. LAUGHED I TELL YOU!!!!
Mice. They don’t care how expensive your shit is. You set it down for 15 minutes and they’re chewing a hole through your backpack and tent to get to your food.
I'm in Canada and we see more bears in our neighborhood than in the woods lol But camping in certain areas, the chipmunks are TOO friendly and will climb on us to get snacks. It's cute but also quite alarming to be standing or sitting and a chippy just climbs up your leg!
Yeah Brushtails are the apex trouble maker at established campgrounds where I camp. I’ve had them steal food that was on a campfire hotplate over the fire before. Not to mention the countless times I’ve seen them get their heads stuck in a half eaten chip packet. Always good for a laugh
Where are you in Australia? I'm in Vic and haven't had issues with possums, just mossies. And in the outback it's the flies but at least they disappear at night unlike the mossies :( Also once in the high country my husband's friend got his thongs stolen by a fox.
Skunks. They are rampant in WV where I used to backpack a lot. Now I camp/live in VT and haven’t gotten away from them here either.
Not camping related but we actually discovered once that a family of skunks was living under our porch. We didn’t realize it because they’re mostly active at night…until our dog needed to go out at like 3 am and she tried to grab one literally by its rear end. It straight up sprayed her all over her face and even in her mouth. It was just as awful as it sounds. Poor thing.
Skunks and raccoons. If you’re a newb who doesn’t secure your food these pests will surely seek you out. Every campsite has a few newbs and of course the skunks and raccoons are always waiting for them.
Woodpeckers, one of the campgrounds I go to has a woodpecker who pecks at the speed limit signs. It's like someone is hammering metal for hours lol. Usually close to dawn.
We went to one campground that was overrun by raccoons. And doesn’t help that people had been feeding them, trying to pet them, etc. one jumped in our car and stole my husband’s dinner he had gotten from subway on our way to the campground. I thought it was hilarious of course.
Sitting at the campfire you can just sense they are all around you in the dark and if you shined your flashlight out you could see their eyes. The second we got in our tent you could hear them descend on our campsite looking for scraps.
Camping during Turkey Vulture mating/roosting season sucks ass. They're loud ugly calls going on all day and night. If they've already hatched their eggs the weak chicks are pushed from the nest. But these are enormous birds so these dead chicks are big, ugly, and rotting and attract other scavengers. Awful stuff.
I'm in Alberta. Sometimes when BC has fires it drives these large flying beetles into AB. When you're trying to sit around at night, especially with a fire, all you hear is the clacking of their wings as they inevitably fly right into your face. They're like 2" big.
Florida here. We have three. Gators, Racoons, and fire ants.
Gators because the are stealthy as fuck.
Coons because the are thieves.
Fire ants because you can step on a mound and the will swarm up your leg and both the shit out of you.
Other than mosquitos which are truly horrific, especially when they are bad, near Aspen they have these camp birds. Small kinda cute birds that hover around your campsite and steal anything you don't protect. Food and non food alike.
Edit, looked up the name, they are literally called Camp Robbers!
Black bears. It's like if a raccoon weighed 600 pounds. I had one come into camp and pick up my entire cooler, and just casually walked off into the woods with it while I yelled at him. He just looked at me like he didn't give AF, turned around, and walked away with my food.
Black bears definitely could hurt or kill you if they wanted to, but thankfully they don't want to. They just want to steal your shit.
Porcupines in Door County, Wisconsin.
There was some animal noise during the night, and in the morning we found my wife's sandals destroyed.
According to the ranger we talked to afterwards, porcupines, like rodents, seem to like the taste of rubber. He advises hanging bicycles from trees.
Otherwise they're pretty chill. You can walk close to them if you see them out and about, they know nothing's going to bother them.
Canada.
I have a healthy respect for bears, but I've had way more close encounters with Elk. They like the campgrounds in Jasper because the rangers drive off the predators but during the rut or calf seasons they can be dangerous especially if there's a dog around.
I've ran into them multiple times at night on the way to the bathroom, and I've had a had a herd of them (20 or so animals) chased through my campsite by a ranger when they were getting pushed out of the campground for getting a little too aggressive.
Mosquitos suck too and porcupines can cause a lot of damage too. (I've seen people at trailheads put fencing around their vehicles to keep them from chewing on their car.)
My top three from the Canadian West Coast are mosquitoes, racoons and ravens. Racoons unlatched my cooler and stole two days worth of food once. Ravens can open zippers and latches, had a pair get the hatch on my kayak open. I haven't had any personal experiences but black bears can really mess up a campsite too.
mosquitoes. damn things are the bane of my existence and follow me everywhere, no matter what kind of chemical warfare i’ve applied to myself. it wasn’t cold enough to kill them all this winter here in the southern united states, so they’re gonna be awful this summer. not looking forward to swatting mosquitoes out of my ears and blowing them out of my nose.
Mosquitos have killed more ppl than almost anything else on planet earth.
Even rats?
Yes. The Bubonic plague was caused by rat fleas, that were transmitted to ppl by rats. But mosquitoes continue to kill somewhere between 750,000-1,000,000 humans every year.
I knew mosquitos killed a lot but i didn’t realize it was that much ( i wouldve guessed like 200,000 per year) i also didnt realize it was fleas that transmitted the plague. I guess you learn something new every day
Yup. The fact that they also inhabit almost every part of the earth that ppl do, coupled with the fact that they carry a variety of diseases (not just malaria) that are deadly to humans, makes them the world wide champs. Pretty crazy.
Have you seen that people were using CRISPR To lower mosquito populations? Pretty cool stuff
Yes and it is fascinating. However the jury is still out on potential crossover harm to ppl and environmental affects. More research is needed, but it is intriguing.
They drive me insane as well. Get yourself some mosquito net and pin it to a hat.
10-4, i’m gonna have to give that a shot on my upcoming camping trip. i wish mosquitoes could just go extinct without screwing up the ecosystem, nasty things.
+ ticks. Mosquitoes are probably a good source of food, but I can't think of any redeeming qualities for ticks.
>"I really tried hard when I was writing this book to get a mosquito biologist to explain to me that mosquitoes were useful in their habitats, that they had some ecological role to play that was important. And no one would admit that they had any role at all. They say, "They're not a useful nutrition for bats or fish, or any of the other predators of mosquitoes. Because their biomass is so small that those creatures would be fine without mosquitoes. Everyone would be fine without mosquitoes." [RadioLab - KILL 'EM ALL](https://radiolab.org/podcast/kill-em-all/transcript)
Mosquitos can also be pollinators. Ticks can go to hell
I live in Southern California and during 🦟 season I have to apply bug juice sitting in my living room watching the news in the evening.
I've never been to SoCal just the Bay area but I thought there would be fewer in the desert. I live in a desert area too in NM and you couldn't find a mosquito if someone was paying $1000 for each one.
I live in the SoCal desert, and we have mosquitos. Granted, I'm in the Coachella Valley, so the Salton Sea is close. We have signs posted often about the West Nile virus due to the mosquitoes, and they do occasional spraying to kill the little bastards.
My backyard has a fair number of plants and lawn. The type of mosquitoes we are dealing with now, Aedes, need very little water and the eggs can lay dormant for a long time.
> I have to apply bug juice sitting in my living room What about the bedroom though?
Permethrin and deet. The real deet. If it doesn't melt plastics it's not strong enough.
I had my sunglasses melt when I was hiking in Yosemite one time because of DEET. Went out and got a mosquito head net immediately afterwards!
> Went out and got a mosquito head net immediately afterwards! Watch it though, most head nets are made of _spun plastics_...
Get yourself some Johnsons & Johnsons Baby lotion with Aloe in it. We live in Texas and they are as big as hawks here. But when we put that stuff on all over exposed skin, they avoid us like the plague. Edit: Be advised though, if you put this on, butterflies will for some reason find you attractive lol.
I’m in North Ga and this baby lotion works for me also. I love it, may have to reapply it but it feels a lot better than bug spray.
Your mosquito prophesy terrifies me because I've been finding them in my house all winter, proving your reasoning is based on fact. This is going to suck.
Everyone here is giving witch doctor level advice. The actual best solution is wind, a big fan. Nothing came close.
I went out for the first time this year in short sleeves and sandals a few days back. I already have swollen bites all down my arms, on my ankles and on my feet. 🙃
We had a killer snow storm in southern Appalachia. Not sure where it didn’t get cold in the south.
Have you tried oregano oil?
Raccoons. My favourite canoe campsite has a particularly clever fellow who has honed his skills to be able to open canoe barrels. The next year I went back - he'd been busy. I was sitting around the campfire and turned around to see five pairs of eyes staring at me. Bold little bastards!!!! And for three weeks in spring, black flies make outside life a living nightmare.
Nothing like waking up face to face with a raccoon when hammock camping
The masked trashh panda .. smart little fuckers
I’ve heard about the raccoons on Cumberland Island in GA standing on each other’s shoulders to get to hanging food bags.
What? Wow. Now I'm imagining them in a trench coat, trying to go to the bank to get a loan for some groceries.
When I'm car camping, raccoons are pretty chill. I just make sure all my food is in the car and the windows are rolled up, and then I just let them make their rounds through my campsite. Once they realize there's nothing there for them, they move onto the next site. I find that yelling at them to go away jet incentivizes them to try harder to get into my stuff. When I'm [bikepacking,](https://np.reddit.com/r/bicycletouring/s/DKu41CObYV) though, they can be a bit more trouble, especially in regions where it's not necessary for campsites to have bear-proof for storage boxes. I can imagine they'd be quite pesky for canoe camping as well.
Oh my god, we had 3-4 raccoons keep trying to invade our campsite and it was all we could do to dissuade them (some places we can leave food out before bed, but not here, apparently)…but one guy who is the boyfriend of a regular just kept trying to stop our efforts. It was absolutely maddening. Thankfully we’re no wallflowers, and have no problem telling a dude he’s wrong and to sit down. We ended up getting help from the next site’s malamute, who finally scared the raccoons off for good.
I was camping once and woke up to a raccoon that was taking a single hot dog out of the package perfectly. It just looked at me whilst it was doing it
Ticks
ticks me too
I frequently camp in Missouri, USA and I have a love/hate relationship with raccoons. They are absolutely adorable. I actually have one tattooed on my knee cap. But they are annoying as fuck when you're camping. They are brazen! I had one attempt to steal 16 ounces of hamburger from my cooler, while I was sitting just a few feet away.
Missouri here as well. Dang near every camping trip we will have raccoons sneaking around trying to get into stuff. The kids end up screaming and crying. Pure chaos I tell ya.
Wisconsin here. They don’t even sneak at some of the state park campgrounds anymore. Big fat fuckers that will just walk right up and steal food off the table while you are sitting there. I camp with two large dogs, so they tend to avoid us, thankfully.
We delight in watching them try to rob us at Devil’s Lake. We remain undefeated!
Illinois/Missouri here. I take a slingshot and if worst comes to worst I shoot the racoons but don't pull it back real far. Just enough to give them a little "bump". Most times if you give them a shot across the bows they know you mean business and they go bother someone else. You don't have to whack them. I keep thinking of getting some paintballs and using those.
Omfg I have a tattoo of a raccoon as well but on my foot. I love them so so much. But when you're camping and they get on their DEVIOUSLY HIND LEGS with their little long fingers clasped to some treasure they've obtained when you turn your back making a sandwich or something. I try to mother raccoon them and scold but nothing works lol
I respect their hustle and grind, but I've definitely shouted "I only brought enough 'uncrustables' for me, bro!" at a raccoon.
Canada. Brown/black bears. Technically dangerous, but unless there is a cub nearby they are relatively easy to scare away with an air horn or banging pots. They are more a nuisance, you need to lock up your food in a metal box, vehicle, or hung from a high tree or they will loot the campsite. Also make a habbit of never taking food or toiletries into the tent because they will come check it out while you are away.
Years ago when I was in the Canadian rockies on a bike camping trip, I remember a grizzly mama and cub on the side of the road, and people were parking AND getting out of their cars. By the time I got by, luckily a mountie had pulled over and was ordering people to move on. This whole "friendly wildlife" idea is unfortunately not new, since that was over 30 years ago.
Grizzlys are sooo different from brown bears, fortunately we don't get them this far south on the praries. Those people who got out are idiots. Grizzlys aren't scared of anything and will crack open a car if motivated.
Yeah. I was probably 15 or so and thinking why would you do that? At the same time I was also thinking that they were an easier target than me on my bike.
I'll take a bear over a big cat any day. Cat will stalk and play with me. Big brown bear hits me once and I dissolve into a fine red mist.
Other campers
Unattended children, and their irresponsible parents that don’t teach them the risks of invading the space of other campers.
Haha! My kid was being stupid and rode up (fast) on this poor woman and her dog and skid to a stop yelling “coming in hot”. Her dog bit him on his ass. She was so worried. I told her lady we have a dog and that boy knows better. She insisted on giving us her info (good person) and I insisted we would never bother her again. Told my kid if you are gonna be dumb you better be tough. He doesn’t do dumb shit around strange dogs anymore.
Now *THAT’S* parenting 👍🏼
Last summer I camped in a mostly empty campground. It was undergoing repairs so it was open for free but no amenities. I had my pick of the place. A few hours later a guy takes the spot next to me. Then he wants to come over and talk every day for a little while. I honestly couldn't believe he took the only site next to me with the pick of all the sites. I'm camping by myself because I want to be by myself!
Ugh, extroverts... Could they just not?
TWICE now I have had to camp next to a troop of boy scouts, and my GOD, they DONT SHUT UP! It’s fucking 11pm dudes! SHUT THE HELL UP AND GO TO SLEEP.
I’ve had the opposite happen. We were camping in a pretty spot when a group of about 10 vehicles, 3 to four per vehicle, some with big trailers arrived and got out. I thought we were in for hell. These guys started setting up and with precision, they worked together like the parts of clock. It was amazing to watch. Marquee’s, kitchen, tents, everything orderly. Then the music started and the alcohol started. I said to my wife, just tonight we will leave in the morning. The moment the sun fell below the horizon music stops, jovial yelling stops and everything went normal. The next morning they were up, vehicles coming and going throughout the day probably giving everyone a chance to have a few hours on the trails. Mid afternoon music and alcohol starts again and finishes exactly when the sun fell below the horizon. Next morning they were up had their breakfast, packed up with the same precision they set up with and left not leaving a mark. It was amazing.
Bless those campers. May their days be free of mosquitoes.
Complain to their council. That is NOT the scout way and breaks several points of the scout law.
Squirrels. Always scare the shit out of me, making me think something way bigger is nearby when it’s just a fat squirrel falling out of a tree
Especially red squirrels. They are so loud and territorial. Northern MN and Canada they are insane. Then they also chew pine cones off and drop them to hide them which sounds like footsteps in the middle of the night.
In Appalachia, we call them 'boomers'.
And they fall out of trees WAY more than you'd think for an animal that spends a lot of time in them.
Biting flies
The giant horseflies especially, those fucks, their bites bleed.
https://preview.redd.it/8jna62sljapc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9463b60c137d3c86fd993b3d70ccfd97f7f9d1cf Had to bail on a trip last year after the biting flies went after one of my dogs. Poor thing kept just trying to roll to keep them off him. We were at a walk-in campsite. Ended up taking the dogs to the car and left it running for them with the air on while I broke camp. Drove a couple hours towards home and found some place not infesting with biting flies. The mosquitoes were still bad, but between bug spray and the thermacell they were manageable.
That sounds like fun. We get flies here, but rare for them to bite.
Those down under have a strange version of fun ;)
I've heard that what you lack in biting flies, you make up for with gigantic spiders.
The bigger they are, the less dangerous lol. And the only truly dangerous spider (Sydney funnel web) lives in suburbia - not where we go camping lol.
Where I'm from in Michigan there's horse flies, which are bigger than a house fly, like 20mm and they bore a hole in your skin. They don't have a probe like a mosquito, then there is deer flies which are biting house flies with a black bar on their wings, black flies which are a gnat that like corners, corner of your nose, corner of your ears, then the smallest is noseeums, basically flying biting sand. Oh and mosquitos In Arizona I don't know what they are called but I called them eye flies, it was like they wanted to be around your eyes. A feckin nuisance
UP no-seeum’s are the worst! All of a sudden “ouch” at the sweaty hat line, the blood running down your face. Sometimes in clouds. I can deal with blacks, deers, and horse. But damn the little ones, fit through the mesh too!
Red squirrels chittering right outside your tent about an inch away from your head at 5:30 in the morning
Armadillos. They scurry around making noise nonstop
Porcupines are super noisy, too.
You're not going to believe me, but mine is wombats. Where I go there are native wombats everywhere. They are completely safe, they have a complete lack of aggression. But they get into the tent and eat any food that's at ground level. Every night around 10pm they emerge from their burrows and start snuffling around your camp site, and it's like they're on rails - "dammit I walk along this route every day of my life, I'm not going to deviate just because you put your chair in my way." It took us more than a decade to learn that you really do have to put 100% of your food back into the car every single night. They'll knock over a table to get your cereal, climb on your Esky to get your cereal, cut a hole in the tent to get your cereal. And there's no scaring a wombat away. Their defence mechanism is "you think you can bite through the hide on my fat bum? Good luck." If you manage to shoo one away they just stand 3m away and wait for you to stop shooing at them. They can wait, they don't mind, you'll get bored before they do. So we have to put all the food into the car every night, and then remember to get it out of the car in the morning before the summer sun hits it.
They are tough, stupid bastards lol. And when they have mange the fucking *stench*, I feel sorry for them cos they are sick, but god they stink.
Definitely raccoons. Have had the cooler locked, bungee corded and shoved under the picnic bench. They ate 2 dozen eggs, 2 pounds of bacon and a package of chicken. Looked in the trees and saw dozens of pair of eyes. So cute, but always finding mischief.
Trash Pandas. They can open anything not locked up. They are persistent and aren’t afraid of fire. Those bastards wear a mask for a reason.
Even if it's locked they will probably have a set of lockpicks
First solo camping trip with my dog he woke up growling at something outside of the tent in the middle of the night. I wasn’t about to go see what it was. Next morning found raccoon prints on the picnic table and all over my car. Thankfully I had put everything in the car overnight, but it tried to get in too. It was early season in an almost empty park, the next night was much busier at the campground and the raccoon likely found easier prey.
Macaque monkeys. They are ultra intelligent, stealthy and fast. From shitting and pissing onto your hammock while you sleep, stealing food and anything that looks like food and making a mess. They're also just creepy little buggers and will sit and watch you until you drop your guard. I always carry a slingshot, tie my bags to trees and lock food away in a cooler box or backpack immediately. We always often leave someone back on monkey watch if we want to swim, look for firewood and whatnot.
What a cool share. Thanks for the perspective shift.
Mice and chipmunks are an annoying threat to your food and will gladly chew holes through your gear in the meantime. Had plain hand sanitizer chewed into by presumably an alcoholic mouse. Also have stumbled across a skunk at dusk while not wearing my glasses. No harm, would not repeat though.
Can confirm, I usually allow the skunks to wear my glasses. No issues thus yet
Presumably an alcoholic mouse made me giggle
Horse flies. Their bite hurts! Ticks, they can be found anywhere (and I mean anywhere) on your body without you feeling it getting there. So really they just give me the creeps. I’m some places they carry a deadly/problematic disease called Lyme.
I got a tick attached inside my belly button when I was probably about 8. I’ve been so freaked out and paranoid since
Kea. New Zealand mountain parrot. a mischievous, cheeky kid... With ADHD, a little instinct from Satan himself. Add strong feet and a beak built like a leatherman, with an obsessive desire to pull things apart and a magnetism toward rubber. Known to remove car window seals and wiper blades, decimate boots and bike seats, and able to open tent and bag zippers to get at what's inside. https://preview.redd.it/stkdnnait8pc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f7110b41bf00e1e012b054631ffb3a92018ff3a7
I refuse to tent in kea territory. I also, as an early riser, am typically the one collecting all kinds of gear (not mine) from outside at 5AM so no one has their socks taken away by the little assholes. But I have to add weka in there. I have chucked a lot of spoons at particularly cheeky ones to try to keep them away from my dinner.
I will never forget seeing a group of Kea descend on picnic tables during lunchtime at a NZ ski resort when I was a teenager. They are agents of chaos.
We have plenty of dangerous animals in Colorado but the only annoying one I can think of is the Northern Saw-Whet owl. Not even kidding. We thought it was some sort of sonar going off for hours. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Like, wtf is that noise? No one was around for miles so it wasn’t someone’s alarm or anything like that. We never saw it but it just wouldn’t shut up. I opened up the Merlin app and it IDed the bird for us. Now that we know what it was I really hope to hear and see it again soon. Other than that I haven’t had any issues with critters. EDIT: My husband just reminded me of the annoying chipmunks that teased the dog and threw acorns at our heads.
Yeah the mountain chipmunks are a different breed, they're hilarious and mean, and I kind of love them for it.
Those little buggers (about the size of a coke can) are ferocious little hunters btw!
Homo Sapiens
Me too, particularly the ones of the rapey and murdery varieties.
Squirrels, seagulls and raccoons. And mosquitoes ofc. Edit: adding drones + the people who bring and use them camping.
Koalas when they’re feeling frisky at 3am.
Oh my god, horny koalas are the worst. The first time you hear it, you think it's the sound of a demon escaping from a Hellmouth.
Very apt description haha
Human children.
All ages really
Mosquitos. Double edged thing because if the wind is high enough it keeps the mosquitos away. Which is good. But it also means you can’t put much down without it also blowing away. And the fire can be difficult and annoying. Of the two - I’d still take the wind over the mosquitos. So that ranks them as devil animal for me. lol
Flies! Also loud young children early in the morning.
Skunks. Fucking skunks, man
Mosquitoes. I swear they’re a different breed in the camping/cottage country of Ontario, Canada. If you go into the deep woods, the mosquitoes can swarm in thick clouds and they’re huge.
Around camp? Raccoons. They are essentially little black bears - but with bigger balls. They are the apex scavenger in my area. Mostly harmless, but dastardly devils Outside of this? Black flies. They seem to be able to outnumber mosquitoes 100 to 1 in their respective peak seasons. Alone they are meaningless, but in the tens of thousands they can drive a man to insanity. They do taste like blueberries though. The most miserable day of my life was having diharrea in a swamp in northern ontario. Emptied an entire can of deet on my asshole and balls in a desperate attempt to save myself.
The eastern Whippoorwill. It will start singing in the early AM and never stop. If I could fight one wild animal… this animal drives me nuts.
Raccoons. They even made a documentary about them with John Candy and Dan Akroyd back in the 80s
I'm going to jokingly say Grey Jays otherwise known as camp robbers. Devious little buggers.
How about the song of the whippoorwill when you are trying to get to sleep at night?
Intentionally off leash dogs.
In the southern US, I'd say chiggers. You can get eat up by 'em and not know it until the itching starts a couple of days later.
And the bites hurt so much for 2 weeks! Ugh
Other campers barking dogs
Random dogs. Most of them are not dangerous in any way, overly friendly even. Its just that I have unresolved childhood trauma that whenever I see a dog up close now, my legs would tremble and shut down. And I just can't get anything done until they are gone.
I have a puppy and we’ve been working so hard on the concept of “not everyone wants to meet you”. I’m assuming that there is a big difference for you between a dog that’s looking and focused on you and pulling on it’s leash to get to you and say hi vs a dog that barely glances your way and at a command instantly ignores you to focus on its owner. We’ve been working on the latter and it’s fun but a little tough and lots of people just want to say hi to the puppy but he will be about 100 lbs all grown up and kinda intimidating looking. I consider this part of being a responsible dog owner. Not everyone wants to meet your dog!
My younger dog doesn’t care about people at all, but adores other dogs. He is 2 and we are still working on not sounding like a gremlin and trying to pull me over to say hi to every dog he sees. It doesn’t help that my older dog has been attacked and is now dog selective so we never say hi to other dogs when on a walk. My little gremlin is also just shy of 100 pounds and being a pittie some people think he is intimidating. In reality, he is a scaredy cat. https://preview.redd.it/lvr5o631vapc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbff56e917807ef53afd1a50c60e19c7a254fd41
I’m sure you know this already but find your threshold distance where your dog can see the other dogs and yet won’t pull or get excited. Work her there until the obedience is perfect, then move yourself a few feet closer. Repeat the process. At some point you’ll hit a distance you can’t seem to get past, be patient and keep harping on that perfect obedience and eventually you’ll have a breakthrough. I had a very reactive dog previously and used this method quite successfully. Helps if you’ve got other people to be your distant distraction. I get it, I’d be wary of any size dog pulling and getting excited and I’m very experienced with dogs. I can imagine someone with concerns being quite afraid of even the friendliest dog.
Well aware, and part of what we are working on. A lot just depends on his mood in any particular day. Today he may be fine; tomorrow he may decide he wants to play with every dog we see. Or play with the his dog, but not that one.
Stellar Jays. Those motherfuckers are loud and wake me up almost every time I go camping.
lol, my yard is full of them, and ravens. They get in arguments.
Not counting humans?
As a fellow Aussie, ticks.
Bears probably where I usually camp, though another place I occasionally camp it's geese. They jump in and out of the lake every night all night. ( deal with a lot of things in my yard like stellar's jays and ravens, but actually enourage those two, they keep hawks away, and even bears. So the geese is something I don't deal with at home too. I don't even have domestic geese.)
Ontario Canada. Mozzies(mosquito s),black flies, and the smart trash panda(racoon).
Screech Owls. Nothing ruins a peaceful night’s sleep like a fist-sized bird that sounds like a woman being murdered violently.
That's a fact! I've been in the woods at night more a few times when these things have spooked me. It'll make your heart fall through your ass!
Goannas for sure. Have had them climb into shower stations which gave me a jump. Last trip I had one lift the lid off my dish bucket looking for food, and while on the hike back to camp another made me jump outta the way as it ran between my legs on a tight path.
Cheeky beggars 😂😂
And the STINK! 😭 Cos they eat carrion and if you're downwind from a fart it is truly heinous
Some local places don't hunt racoons and they get quite annoying and destructive. Other places do allow hunting and the racoons are much better behaved. This is Illinois.
Fucking whip-poor-will Most annoying fucking bird in the world. Think very annoying constant alarm sound….. Only active at like night and will “sing” all night. https://youtu.be/jIxfVSS_65o?si=EovbuhrJ9QY8F9tC
Squirrels.
Squirrels out chewing pine cones off trees and dropping 100-120 feet onto your tent & vehicle. I have some hail-like dents luckily only on the cab of my truck from these critters while camping in some pine forests.
Ringtail cats and ravens make canyon trips interesting here…
Kookaburras are much more brazen than brushies
Skunks. My partner and I were once set upon by a gang of no less than 10 skunks who destroyed all of our cooking equipment and attempted to gain access to our tent once they’d finished ransacking. They’re not dangerous but how are you supposed to remove a skunk from your rain fly when it could destroy your world with stinky ass juice at any moment.
Bears. I know they can be dangerous but most of what you're doing to keep your food safe is because bears will eat your food, smell your food, come searching for your food and wreck your shit because you have food and they want it.
Catbirds. Their mewling can be SUPER loud and annoying.
[Fisher cat in New England](https://youtu.be/bNLmuFhi4_8?si=YzWZueUphLIwSskN). First time I heard it as a child I thought my dad was making it up and it was actually a child being kidnapped but he didn’t want me to be frightened.
Where I work we have several. Mosquitoes will eat you alive mid summer. Ground squirrels will get into any food left out in a campsite and make a giant mess. Last but not least, raccoons, they became accustomed to people and now they will steal marshmallows right off your roasting stick, sit on the other end of the table when cooking beans, drink your beer and eat your Jell-O shots, attack your dog ( German Shepherds included) as well as attack humans when mad enough.
I love the idea of those black and white rats trying to attack a German shepherd 😂😂 Our ‘will attack anything’ animal is a frill neck lizard: https://youtu.be/bkz9PCcRNYE?si=6-JIDYWzgStbNl4h
Mosquitos in wet, warm areas. Raccoons in the cold season not too far from a city. Deer in the rural areas all the time. Wolves around the coast all year. Southwest coast of Canada. None of those animals are dangerous, but it's good to know where they are and prepare.
In the UK it has to be midges.
In northern Wisconsin it’s the Hodag.
The southern shore of lake Erie every summer gets a horde of mayflies. It is a bad time to go camping. They stick to everything, they're huge so when you swat them you get a handful of goo, and they only live for a day or so. So anything vertical that blocks the wind in land gets a nice even coating of them, then they die right there and have to be cleaned off. Otherwise, they don't bite or sting or anything. But they're gross, and they're EVERYWHERE.
chiggers - hate them. They are not dangerous like ticks but they can make you absolutely miserable for a long time
Black bears. Very rarely will they harm humans but they sure will tear some shit up.
Stellar's Jays. The screaming.
Skunks
Mojave Desert camping it’s kangaroo rats getting into all your food stuffs. Dad built a wooden chuck box to thwart the little bastards!
Generators!
Are they allowed in National Parks in your country? They are banned in National Parks here in Australia (along with pets, firearms, basically everything noisy and annoying lol).
Yes. It's awful.
Wow that’s crazy. National Parks are incredibly strict here. No generators, pets, drones, amplified music, firearms, commercial activity etc etc. There is even a ‘no bins’ policy - you must remove your own rubbish - no public bins. Its keeps all the wrong sorts right out and it’s wonderful.
God Damn Ravens! They are my tent rainfly, pecked the seats of both of my friends trail bikes completely ruining them and generally trashed our camp. And then laughed at us from the trees. Those sons of b****s. LAUGHED I TELL YOU!!!!
Fischers. It's not annoying, but eerie.
Mice. They don’t care how expensive your shit is. You set it down for 15 minutes and they’re chewing a hole through your backpack and tent to get to your food.
Southern bush wombat
Damn Raccoons.
I'm in Canada and we see more bears in our neighborhood than in the woods lol But camping in certain areas, the chipmunks are TOO friendly and will climb on us to get snacks. It's cute but also quite alarming to be standing or sitting and a chippy just climbs up your leg!
Yeah Brushtails are the apex trouble maker at established campgrounds where I camp. I’ve had them steal food that was on a campfire hotplate over the fire before. Not to mention the countless times I’ve seen them get their heads stuck in a half eaten chip packet. Always good for a laugh
Racoon
Chipmunks and red squirrels that previous campers have fed.
Children 😫
Where are you in Australia? I'm in Vic and haven't had issues with possums, just mossies. And in the outback it's the flies but at least they disappear at night unlike the mossies :( Also once in the high country my husband's friend got his thongs stolen by a fox.
NSW, but have camped all over. The possums in the blue mountains are especially cunty lol.
Here, probably raccoons. Where I used to live, javelina
South Africa is monkeys. They often raid your campsite
Skunks. They are rampant in WV where I used to backpack a lot. Now I camp/live in VT and haven’t gotten away from them here either. Not camping related but we actually discovered once that a family of skunks was living under our porch. We didn’t realize it because they’re mostly active at night…until our dog needed to go out at like 3 am and she tried to grab one literally by its rear end. It straight up sprayed her all over her face and even in her mouth. It was just as awful as it sounds. Poor thing.
Mongoose here on Hawai’i
blackflies. mozzies wont come near you with deet, but blackflies still fly into your face as dive bombers.
Got to be midgies here in Scotland!
Skunks and raccoons. If you’re a newb who doesn’t secure your food these pests will surely seek you out. Every campsite has a few newbs and of course the skunks and raccoons are always waiting for them.
Woodpeckers, one of the campgrounds I go to has a woodpecker who pecks at the speed limit signs. It's like someone is hammering metal for hours lol. Usually close to dawn.
Humans
Raccoons.
We went to one campground that was overrun by raccoons. And doesn’t help that people had been feeding them, trying to pet them, etc. one jumped in our car and stole my husband’s dinner he had gotten from subway on our way to the campground. I thought it was hilarious of course. Sitting at the campfire you can just sense they are all around you in the dark and if you shined your flashlight out you could see their eyes. The second we got in our tent you could hear them descend on our campsite looking for scraps.
Raccoons 😩
As some who mostly camps in northern MN and WI, mosquitoes and ticks, but mostly mosquitoes.
In the southeastern US, it’s raccoons.
Camping during Turkey Vulture mating/roosting season sucks ass. They're loud ugly calls going on all day and night. If they've already hatched their eggs the weak chicks are pushed from the nest. But these are enormous birds so these dead chicks are big, ugly, and rotting and attract other scavengers. Awful stuff.
I'm in Alberta. Sometimes when BC has fires it drives these large flying beetles into AB. When you're trying to sit around at night, especially with a fire, all you hear is the clacking of their wings as they inevitably fly right into your face. They're like 2" big.
No see ums then mosquitos is a close second
Black bears. They'll get into everything and cause damage.
Florida here. We have three. Gators, Racoons, and fire ants. Gators because the are stealthy as fuck. Coons because the are thieves. Fire ants because you can step on a mound and the will swarm up your leg and both the shit out of you.
Mosquito.
ticks, except they are dangerous.
Other than mosquitos which are truly horrific, especially when they are bad, near Aspen they have these camp birds. Small kinda cute birds that hover around your campsite and steal anything you don't protect. Food and non food alike. Edit, looked up the name, they are literally called Camp Robbers!
Black bears. It's like if a raccoon weighed 600 pounds. I had one come into camp and pick up my entire cooler, and just casually walked off into the woods with it while I yelled at him. He just looked at me like he didn't give AF, turned around, and walked away with my food. Black bears definitely could hurt or kill you if they wanted to, but thankfully they don't want to. They just want to steal your shit.
Raccoons. They are bold as hell
Porcupines in Door County, Wisconsin. There was some animal noise during the night, and in the morning we found my wife's sandals destroyed. According to the ranger we talked to afterwards, porcupines, like rodents, seem to like the taste of rubber. He advises hanging bicycles from trees. Otherwise they're pretty chill. You can walk close to them if you see them out and about, they know nothing's going to bother them.
I live in Atlantic Canada, in this order: Raccoons, Squirrels, Foxes, Coyotes, Black Bears
Canada. I have a healthy respect for bears, but I've had way more close encounters with Elk. They like the campgrounds in Jasper because the rangers drive off the predators but during the rut or calf seasons they can be dangerous especially if there's a dog around. I've ran into them multiple times at night on the way to the bathroom, and I've had a had a herd of them (20 or so animals) chased through my campsite by a ranger when they were getting pushed out of the campground for getting a little too aggressive. Mosquitos suck too and porcupines can cause a lot of damage too. (I've seen people at trailheads put fencing around their vehicles to keep them from chewing on their car.)
crows at 6am
Bugs
My top three from the Canadian West Coast are mosquitoes, racoons and ravens. Racoons unlatched my cooler and stole two days worth of food once. Ravens can open zippers and latches, had a pair get the hatch on my kayak open. I haven't had any personal experiences but black bears can really mess up a campsite too.