I encountered a large carnivore in the civilized before but not in the wild. Canadian here for what it’s worth. Ran across a black bear on night shift bang in the middle of a massive oil refinery complex. Paved for a kilometre in every direction.
Black bears are very low risk to humans and I had an F350 between me and it, even still it’s just not something you mess with. It changed the whole course of my day instantly as I had to start reporting to site safety etc, I spent the next 3 hours on the radio.
Other than that I’ve seen the occasional lynx or mountain lion, but at great distance. Generally these things aren’t seen by humans unless they want to be or don’t care. You see them because they’re chasing prey or you get lucky and their out sunning themselves or something and you’re far enough away they aren’t threatened.
Large carnivores are pretty rare and not necessarily the largest wild animal threats to humans or livestock. Something like racoons or foxes taking chickens is a much larger nuisance to many more people than something like a mountain lion taking sheep. And something like a moose or a goose is a lot more likely to fuck you up because people don’t perceive these animals as threats and take way larger risks than they do around predators.
Any animal regardless of size or perceived danger should just be treated like it’s 10 times larger and covered in knives if it has babies nearby