[breakfastduck]

How can we be so certain there are no killer mushrooms in your area? We have no idea what is growing on a daily basis, the guidebooks were only accurate on the date of publication.

[anm89]

This just isn't true. There aren't new mushroom species popping up in the night with any regularity. In the US we have a very good survey of what is out there.

I have never heard a story of someone making a positive identification based on the resources available, then getting poisoned because they had discovered a new species which had total overlap with their positive identification. Doesn't mean it's never happened but I would say if it has it is exceedingly rare.

In the same way we don't not drive because it's possible to crash, I'm not going to stop foraging because of the possibility of super outlier events.

[breakfastduck]

I was talking about misidentifying because there's a mushroom present that 'shouldnt' be in the area, not an entirely new species, lets not get carried away because it frustrated you.

There are plenty of things people dont do because of the risk, so your argument there is complete nonsense.

Sure jumping out of a plane with a parachute is going to be safe if you're confident you know what you're doing, but there's plenty of people (including myself) that wouldn't dare do it.

The comment I responded to had this - "but she wouldn't budge from the belief that if you're not an expert you'll pick a mushroom and die. People are missing out on a very enjoyable past time because of fear mongering."

Which is an unbelievably ignorant attitude. Comes across as "People aren't getting into X hobby I like because they're afraid, so we should peer pressure them into doing it anyway" (even though someone who is nervous is 10x more likely to make a mistake that DOES end in death or illness)