Barry,
I think you are trying to scare yourself. Perhaps you should take better heed of what some of the more experienced individuals on this forum have to say rather than arguing with them.

You worry about bears. Good. Bears can hurt you. Are they likely to? No! The odds of you being a victim of a bear attack are about the same as those of your being mugged in church; insignificant. I have hiked, worked and mountaineered in the western mountains for over 60 years. This experience includes a lot of time in bear central, the Sierra, as well as in grizzly country in Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia. Have I had bear encounters? Yes, quite a few. Did anything come of them? No. Once, I got near a sow grizzly with cubs. She bluff charged, I retreated, and all was well (after I changed my undies).

The biggest problem one is likely to have with bears is their trying to get at your food; I suspect that most bears would prefer even instant oatmeal to a bite of you.

Snakes? I live in SE Arizona. There are a lot of rattlesnakes here and a lot of different species of rattlers. Are they a risk to one's safety? Yes. Are they a significant risk to one's safety? No. In season, I see at least one rattler on every other trip into the local mountains. I have never had one strike and they don't attack.

I was bitten on the calf by a rattlesnake back when I was about 12 years old. It scared the crap out of me but it was a dry bite and required no treatment. I'm told that over half of rattlesnake bites are dry. Well over half of all bites are on males between 16 and 25 years of age with alcohol a common factor and often accompanied by a cry of "hey guys, watch this!"

Poisonous insects? Again, we have a full selection here in SE Arizona. We have 3-4 different kinds of scorpion, poisonous centipedes and two different kinds of poisonous spiders. None of them are a problem if you watch where you put your hands. Rabid bats are a bigger problem.

In fact, I have suffered more from the local plants than I have from bears, snakes, bats and bad bugs combined. We have stuff with names like catclaw and shin dagger. Just about everything green here has thorns, points or is poisonous. You can loose blood on just a short walk.

My advice to you is: start slow and learn about what is out there to fear. Eventually, you will come to realize that there is really not much that goes afoot that you need to fear.

On the other hand, weather changes can be very dangerous for the unprepared. Most of people who die in the back country are victims of the weather and their lack of preparation. Deaths due to animals don't even come close to these numbers.