Giant modern herbivores I would willingly pet in the wild. Buffalo: no. Elephant: no. Reindeer: no. Rhino: no. Water buffalo: no. Giraffe: no. Hippo: no.
Based on modern examples, I’d stay the fuck away.
How do you feel about manatees?
Ooh…or a capybara?
Petting a manatee is a $10,000 fine. No touch.
Yeah that’s the only thing that would keep me from swimming with on. Also that I hate swimming in murky water, reeds, or sea weed.
They’re cool to swim with! Water’s plenty clear where they hang. Ex-gf was a diver and had a side hustle taking people swimming with manatees near the warm springs where they post up for the winter.
They’ll come right up on you! You just can’t touch them. She even got a pic of a newborn! Like, a few minutes old newborn!
100 pounds? Capybaras aren’t anywhere near the size of my other examples. But I’d stay out of the water with a manatee. I don’t think a manatee would care about my existence, but I’d be fine with petting one while I’m on a boat and it’s in the water.
This is why cows kill so many people. Its really easy for an animal five or six times your weight to kill you just by interacting the same way it does with its own species.
That gets worse as the animal gets bigger.
And cows are basically calm little angels compared to say, hippos.
Moose 💀
Goose 🪿
