Pika said: "A couple of panicked elk chose to run between those particular trees when he was in the hammock. The elk won that one. He wound up with bruises and a few scrapes; the hammock was a loss. I hate to think of what would have happened had he been on the ground and the elk went over the top of him. Probably would have depended on where they stepped as to whether it would have been an "oof" or an "ouch"."

I'm a person that's done quite a few nights in a (HH) hammock; I ultimately came to prefer dirt camping again, but I see advantages in both approaches.

In terms of wildlife safety, I'm inclined to agree with hammock hangers for the most part (that hammocks are safer), particularly insofar as you tend to sleep away from places animals are habituated to.

The exception for me is elk. In mating season, male elk like to "spar" with things, and hammocks are nicely situated to make me an elk pinata. I'm not concerned about bear or other critters, but I can recollect a couple nights hearing elk bugling not too far away and having a brief feeling of disquiet.

To be fair, I've never heard of anyone being poked by an elk antler while in a hammock, it's akin to the discussions of lightening strikes (only with even less empirical basis). But FWIW, I would nevertheless rather be on the ground with Elk about. I've had large elk come quite close to me when I was in just a bivy sack on the ground, with no problem; they likely knew where I was and were disinclined to get so close as to step on me.

I guess the real bottom line, however, is that wildlife should IMO make no difference to choice of backcountry shelter. The statistics are way in your favor of sleeping safe.