What is your most memorable wild animal encounter?

Mostly recently I’d been attacked by a bird in June, but previously, my closest wildlife experiences had been multiple standoffs with skunks.
Didn’t get sprayed, but there were some tense moments. They key there is no sudden movements.

A squirrel bit me once. It was definitely memorable and has made me all the more leery of small woodland animals.

A baby giraffe licked my face haha, it was pretty cool but gross at the same time. Though the most memorable experience was when I helped a paralyzed wild rabbit for a night, it would drag it’s back legs so i kept it in my room all night to make sure she wouldn’t die, and would just sit around with her. Eventually I took her to a sanctuary to get her medical help and a home. I felt I at least helped a little.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

That stinks!

My foxy wife in a close encounter of the human kind, other than that, just when my dog pissed at me.

This experience wasn’t up-close and personal, but it was definitely memorable.

The wife and I went to Maui and visited a hotel that had dolphins. We were watching them swim and play from a bridge so we could easily see what they were doing when they were underwater. Well, we thought they were playing, but then we saw a huge dolphin penis. Huge. The dolphins were chasing each other and, well I looked away because I was horrified. I will never again see dolphins as majestic, ocean creatures. Eww. I don’t even like to think about it.

I’ve swam with dolphins, manatees, and stingrays. All of those experiences were incredible for me. Just the chance to be with them, even for a few minutes, marked my life. They were so friendly.
But, the experience that definetly marked my life the most is the one when I got stung by a bee.
Me, an animal lover enthusiast, (also age 10) picked up a bee from the ground because it looked hurt. I held the bee for a few minutes, and I was already daydreaming about my future adventures with my pet bee, because it seemed so friendly!
But… as all bees do… it stung me, HARD. It was an african bee and my hand got so swollen I couldnt use it at all. Horrible experience, and eventhough if its not as shocking as some of the other stories but it definetly shocked me. I still love bees though…even if they are not my friends… :(

My husband and I were walking in the woods one day in Louisiana. We were on a trail and this armadillo and her babies crossed in front of us. One of the babies fell behind and came over to investigate my foot. All was fine until it actually touched my foot and I started screaming and the poor little thing took off! It wasn’t smelling me it was tasting! Carniverous little shit!

You know, I tend to shy away from nature, I’m what they call “indoorsy”. But my dad is a hunter, and one time when he was hunting partridge, he turned around and found himself face to face with a moose.

I guess my craziest encounter with wildlife was shared with a few others. My parents who are anything BUT “indoorsy” often liked to camp in the summer when I was growing up. My dad’s sister and her husband, and a few mutual friends of theirs and my parents and all the kids who are within a few years of my age would usually spend a week camping in northern MN at this really huge campsite where we could have up to 20 people (some times we’d take that AND a site that slept 12). All tent camping and fishing for a week in very rustic circumstances. Well, one of the participants who came along was unable to bring his wife along for the festivities for one reason or another. She however sent him up to the campsite with a pot of homemade chili.

Well, the adults decided for dinner that first night we’d heat up the chili and have it with barbecued chicken, and I’ve never been a fan of BBQ sauce. I could have said I’d have some chicken with no sauce, but I loved chili so I opted to let them cook up all the chicken with sauce on it. Well, then I tasted the chili, as did everyone else, and we all gagged. I’m not sure WHAT she did, but the chili tasted like barbecue sauce…not at all like chili…it was sickly sweet and tasted like artificial smoke. Even those who liked BBQ did not like it…some tried dipping their chicken IN the chili, but to no avail.

That night, a bear ravaged our campsite while we were all sleeping, and on talking to the campground custodians, we were told that yes, we had to make sure all food was secured in a vehicle or something, because this bear was becoming a problem and they couldn’t get it to go away. So, the husband of the woman who made the chili said, “I got an idea”. That night before we went to bed, he put the pan of chili out at the edge of the campground. We heard some banging, but when we got up in the morning, the campsite was mostly not disturbed, there were bear tracks around the uneaten vat of chili, and no one ever saw that bear again.

Of course, later that same trip, we did have to contend with a flasher, but that’s a whole different type of wildlife.

My father and his friend were on a tour/camping in Michigan, they were older teens…they wandered off on their own and were then chased by a moose until they could easily climb up a tree together. They had to stay there for a while until it was safe. Moose are scary!

I’ve gone camping so many times as a young kid/teen and I cannot think of any animal encounter that I’ve had. I did see a moose upclose in New Hampshire, and I believe it was a bobcat or something in North Carolina…but it was running from our RV.

Oh. My husband just reminded me of my complete freak out when I got to our apartment, and a family of three racoons ran under my car. I had to get out and get the baby from the backseat and go to the door…I was positive they would attack me, and called my father to help me…he just laughed at me. I did not get attacked, I think they ran away.

Oh snap! Almost forgot this one, I think it qualifies, even though the wildlife was domesticated in this case.

My wife and I were coming home from the grocery store one day, we had bags of groceries in our hands, and as I was walking up the back steps, I saw something my brain could not process. It looked like a miniature dinosaur, about the size of a small dog, with reptilian skin and a tail as long as its body. It ran right over my feet and climbed up our huge oak tree. I realized it was a rather large iguana after I came to my senses, and after a neighbor two doors down heard me give out a puzzled shriek and told me that it was his roommate’s and that it had escaped. The whole neighborhood turned out for a getting the giant iguana out of our tree gathering.

Oh, over the years, I’ve had a few experiences.

It started in Florida, when we lived in South Florida…with a canal right behind our house. Great, if you want to go and fish and just sit near the water, bad if you have an alligator that takes up residence in your neighborhood. We lived in an established neighborhood and received notice that neighborhood dogs were disappearing…the gator was snacking on them. Some yards were fenced in, some were not – luckily, our yard was fenced in.

One summer afternoon, one of our dogs was outside just barking away. I went out to see what he was going on about, and I heard this hissing sound – too loud to be a snake, though. I continued, to look around, and then I saw it…a large alligator sitting in my neighbors yard, hissing at my dog. I screamed, grabbed my dog and called wild game patrol – a number that came with the house. They came in and captured it, then relocated it to the Everglades. It was just shy of 6 feet and angry. We sat and watched as they captured it, something I’m sure I’ll never see again.

While my husband and I were on a lake in Virginia, we were about 20ft from the shore and looked up to see a young deer, at the shoreline, drinking. We were captivated by the beauty of the moment. We didn’t make a sound and sat and watched until the deer noticed us. We made eye contact, then it departed. It was just one of those beautiful moments in time, something you don’t see that often.

We lived in a house in North Carolina, when I was in grade school, that was removed from neighborhoods and our neighbors were about a mile away. It was so nice, but you ran into different critters, all the time. The only time it scared us, was the time a bobcat was seemingly stalking our dogs and cat. Eventually, we had to call for help. It was trapped and relocated.

I worked at an animal rescue in Florida. During my time there, I saw many different types of snakes, a lion, tiger and a monkey…among other things…it was very interesting.

@cak I love those moments of eye contact with animals. I can’t describe the feeling. When we were camping the Longhorn were maybe 200 ft (guestimate) from our campsite and they would graze near the lake we were fishing at. I would catch one or two of them staring at us and I wondered what they were thinking. I wish I knew.

Fishing from the bank of the East Alligator, hooking a big barra and just as I was pulling it out of the water a big croc came up and chomped off all but the head. Scared me half to death, I was up on the rocks, it couldn’t get me but it was still a shock!

Tramping through the bush at the back of the golf course looking for my ball and coming face to face with a huge bull water buffalo, they are gigantic and he must have had a 10’ horn spread.

And last (but probably not least) I was running along a bush track with my dog and a roo jumped out and passed right in front of us. Not a dangerous thing, but sure woke me up! My dog practically drug me into the bush after it.

@rooeytoo holy cow! I think I would have needed a change of pants, for the croc encounter!

I was walking through the woods one day in the Fall back when I was about twenty years old, I came out into a clearing, and was suddenly confronted by a 12 point buck in the middle of the clearing. He was obviously in rut, so he was feeling very aggressive. We stood there, facing each other, about ten or twenty feet apart and he tried to stare me down. I was unarmed. The adrenaline rush was intense. I searched my mind for a resolution to the problem. I knew that running away would get me trampled. I decided the only option I had was to make him think I was bigger and more ferocious than I seemed.

I started jumping up and down, waving my arms, yelling and clapping my hands. He just stared at me and pawed the ground. I feared for my life, because I knew that a full grown buck deer in rut could easily kill a human. He finally had enough of my antics, turned on his heel, and vanished into the underbrush. When I found my voice, I swore a blue streak.

Anyone who thinks wild deer (and wild animals in general) are all Bambi and Thumper is obviously delusional.

@evelyns_pet_zebra That’s why I am happy that I was in the boat and the deer was on the shoreline!

@dalepetrie I’m cracking up at “miniature dinosaur” haha. I would probably have screamed a lot more than you.

@jonsblond Luckily, none of my various skunk experiences stunk.

I was at the Storm King outdoor sculpture park a couple of weeks ago with some friends, and a fawn jumped out of the tall grass. He ran about us in a bit of a panic for a few minutes before racing off into the woods.

One friend had never seen a wild animal from that close before. She kept repeating for the rest of the day, “But he jumped out right at us!” Brooklyn kids. Feh. Whaddya gonna do?

Out east, I enticed my know wife to go backpacking with me in the Whites When we finally arrived at our campsite,we were both exhausted. I sat on a log and proceeded to remove my wet boots. Then looking at me was this harmless jack rabbit, it looked at me, her, and then went charge. I don’t know why, maybe to say get the hell out of here-it was weird-I jumped out of the way.
Then, kayaking on our honeymoon on Sanibel, not what it is today, we get bumped by large sting rays nearly flippin our kayak-hormone season I guess. Lastly, my Grizzly experience with Lloyd, now that I think is the scariest by far. Backpackin in the Bob with the 7–11 man, crash, the Grizzlys outside play’in basketball with his head from outside the the tent I admit I wet the bag.

@evelyns_pet_zebra You’re lucky you knew what to do! I can only imagine what was going through your mind. Jon and I were riding an ATV on the property this weekend and our dogs followed us everywhere. Each time we rode through the pasture the cattle would run after the dogs. Our dog Spot was so worn out from following us that day, the last time we went through he almost didn’t make it. He had a Longhorn within 5 ft of him before he made it past the fence. My heart was racing!

I used to rehab wildlife a few years back and could tell a lot of stories but here is one fo my favorites:

A man “thought a baby raccoon would make a cool pet” and took a tiny baby from her mother and kept her in his home feeding her hot dogs and Twinkies till she reached maturity. Once she was an adult she began her natural behavior and was more aggressive. At this point the jerk who had taken her from her natural habitat had tired of her and put her in a shed. This was when my roommate learned about her and adopted her. My first spouse and I built a large natural habitat for her on our property and she and our roommate bonded. (As a side note the main goal was to adopt then release her into nature as she belonged but after conferring with wildlife experts she was not able to be released again into the wild)

When my roommate left to study harbor seals in San Francisco for a month for Cal trans I was in charge of taking care of the raccoon named Lucy. I had learned early on that Lucy was very attracted to jewelry. Once I wore my watch and she grabbed at it and bit at my hand in an effort to get it. Then I learned to not have jewelry on at dinner time and to offer her a ball of tin foil as a peace offering. One morning I went out and the clever raccoon had slipped the latches on the door to her enclosure. She lay sleeping on the dog house nearby. I was unsure what to do then thought “food”
Lucy had been on a healthy diet since coming to live with my roommate. She still had a weakness for eggs though so I scrambled up a few and she practically danced at my feet as I led her back to her enclosure.

Oh, I almost forgot, I just had a bug in my ear! My brother had a couple that were kind of funny. He was sitting on a porch talking to some friends and a hummingbird did a fly-by and he flipped backwords off the porch, stood up and declared “Damn did you see the size of that bee?” The other one was he was walking with his partner and kept hearing ducks, but he couldn’t find them. Finally he looked over at his friend and said “I keep hearing ducks.” At this his friend busted out laughing and said, “Those are the rare and often not seen hot air ducks.” he was passing gas in other words:)

Hmmm, well I’m from Country Victoria Australia, and not long after the Black Saturday bushfires I saw a kangaroo that had been burnt black but had still survived. It had almost lost all it’s fur and it’s actual face was badly burnt too and it had managed to escape. Even though I see lots of kangaroos around where I live I just personally thought that was pretty incredible. :)

I got to pet a Siberian tiger once… thing was huge, I was 8, I was so excited.

went wake boarding a few times, see dolphins come around ever now and again. fed a black bear skittles in allegheny, NY. almost hit a moose in vermont also.

Anyone remember the Lincoln Mercury Cougar? Not the car, but the advertising mascot. Whenever Lincoln/Mercury would advertise their vehicles (this was the late 70s, early 80s), they’d use the tagline “sign of the cat”, and a giant cougar would be seen in the middle of a logo letting out a growl….rowr… Anyway, my parents took me on a 6 week vacation during the summer of 1980, I was 9 and we went to California…Disneyland…but we did so by car and we took the long way. We basically went north from where we were in northern Minnesota, up into Canada and drove through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia before dropping down into Idaho, then Washington (right after Mount St. Helens eruputed and it looked like they’d had an ash storm akin to our Minnesota snow storms), the Oregon and finally through the northern border of California (I won’t even tell you the convoluted route we took home to hit about 15 more states, several of them 2 or 3 times). Our first night in northern California we stayed at a campground (we lugged a pull behind tent camper behind our little Subaru station wagon the whole way…did the same thing the next year when we went to the east coast on another 6 week car ride). When we woke the next morning, we had breakfast in the cafe which was attached to the property, and there was this huge plate glass window we were sitting up against eating, and outside that window there was a large expanse of land with a live cougar prowling the grounds. We talked to the owners after they were done feeding the cat, and it just so happened that this cat WAS the Lincoln Mercury cougar. I was not allowed to pet him though I really wanted to. For a 9 year old who loved big cats it was a thrill, plus the fact that this cat was a celebrity of sorts made it all the more intriguing.

I was cornered on my back porch for thirty minutes by a skunk and an opossum who decided to have a major brawl between me and the door…...so I crawled through the open window beside the door.

Diving 100 ft to a wreck. Between me and the wreck was a massive school of barracuda.
For the most part they are harmless but it still is high on the creepy scale.

I went hiking with a friend not to long ago around the base of a mountain. As we were hiking back to his vehicle, I thought I could hear an extra set of foot steps. My friend was in front of me watching where he was going, oblivious to any other noises really. So I listened as I walked, and the steps were kind of quick, but light. I thought to myself, If it was a cougar or bobcat it wouldn’t of let me know it was coming. So I decided to look over my shoulder, it was a doe. He was just walking with us for some strange reason, couldn’t believe it. I whispered to my friend to look who had joined us, and his eyes exploded with curiousity. We walked for another 5 minutes and then decided to stop and turn around to see what it would do. When we turned it just stood there, just staring at us. I jumped at the doe and it just took a left from its original position and walked up the rocks. Probably one of the weirdest things that has happened to me. But it was awesome.

In Rwanda, I saw a baboon sitting on the roof of a building. I named him Tevye.

A friend of mine was jogging on a mountain trail, and as he turned a corner, found himself between a bear and her cub. The bear attacked, and he curled into a ball. She clawed him for a bit before moving on. He survived to brag about the story.

Working for the phone company, I had to go into someones basement. As I got to the bottom step of a steep stairway, I heard a buzzing behind me, like a pager on vibrate. I turned to find myself eye to eye with a rattlesnake.
The only thing close to me was a mop handle, with no rag on the end. I grabbed it, and jammed it on top of the snake, just as it began jumping at me. I caught the tail, and held it back. It stayed stretched out at me for what seemed like an eternity.
I yelled to the homeowner to get something to kill it, and they came back with a 2×4. They bashed it a few times, then crushed it against the stair while I ran up the stairs. Once the snake was dead, I kept it and brought it home.
It was over 3 foot long, and even though it was dead, it moved around in the bag i had it in for a couple hours.

I once tamed a wild angry bear that invaded our camp.

Ok it was a wild annoyed squirrel that landed on my hood.

The other day, there were deer in my yard outside the living room window, peering in. I wasn’t home to see it, but my parents told me about it. Creepy-ass things…

Edit: The deer were creepy, I mean. Not my parents. Though… they’re a little weird, too, I guess.