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What’s the scariest encounter you have had with an animal ?

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Don’t really have one myself big dog is about it. However I guessing some of you have more exotic stories ?
 
Real blank said:
Don’t really have one myself big dog is about it. However I guessing some of you have more exotic stories ?
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Attendant instruction to chela of pig in forest (do you want to hear it)?

"The pig appeared on the slope, its body steaming like some thing out of an ice age."
 
I was stalked by a coyote while I was jogging one time. It was during the day so I don't know what it was doing out. It crossed the road in front of me a ways ahead as I got up to where I saw it cross it was standing on a mound in the field and staring at me. I waited there for a minute or two and it never took it's eyes off of me. I ended up cutting through a neighborhood and hid behind a tree and it trotted in my direction. I ended up going into a travel trailer store that was very near and asked if I could get a ride home and this really old cool dude dressed in Harley Davidson gear gave me a ride home.
 
Ok, pigs are sorcerers, they control time with their snout, once they catch you they feast on you across time and become human and they are your classmate, sister, wife etc. again and again, and then the pig realizes it's only been fifteen minutes that it held your severed leg while the others went for your face, and it becomes enraged.

The battle between pigs and men has been long, long have they desired to wink over the last miscreant as they fall from the tree.
 
I've had many close encounters with wildlife, large mammals, large and small reptiles, etc. I treasure all the memories.

The only scary one I can think of is one night in Saguaro Nat Monument in AZ, my zookeeper (herpetologist) ex and I found a large w. diamondback rattlesnake on the road. We definitely wanted to see it up close AND make sure we got it safely off of the nice warm pavement it was enjoying.​
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"Washboard" paved roads are common in the park. We got out to see the snake up close, in our headlights. We had snake hooks. He was quite handsome and before we could move him, we saw headlights coming. They appeared and disappeared in the washboard dips. My ex ran back to the car to move it off the road...and left me standing in pitchblack dark with a pissed off D-back. He moved the headlights and I lost view of the snake. #%@^#$!! He'd only been about 4' from me.​
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It seemed like forever but eventually there were headlights again and he came back and we moved the snake off the road before the oncoming vehicle arrived.​

Oh, I guess I had another exciting encounter when, in Everglades Nat Park, I had (chose) to move a large cottonmouth off the road with a floppy branch, and wearing flipflops. But there were no stronger branches around. Cottonmouths are not super venomous but they are very reactive and not too bright even for a snake.

Luckily he was fairly cooperative and I lifted/shooshed him off the pavement.

Been within 30 feet of a cougar, multiple black bears, and some moose. The moose were the only ones fairly scary. Cant think of anything particularly alarming when scuba diving, but I sure as heck used up a lot of air catching an Atlantic lobster with my hands (the big, experienced male divers all had "hooks" to grab them out of their holes with :rolleyes: )​
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My husband, our 2-year-old and I were at my grandparents' farm watching Poppa feeding his mules when one of them suddenly charged us. My husband grabbed our son and ran to the fence with him, me running right behind them. They made it over and as I pulled myself over the fence the mule bit my leg as my husband was pulling me over it. Needless to say, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. Poppa sold him a few days later.
 
Hamish Howl said:
Walked around a boulder and stared at a mountain lion in the Catalina mountains.

The lion wasn't hungry, so here I am.
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I spent a couple of days fishing the upper reaches of hat creek in northern california. I was so afraid my lab was going to get eaten by a lion. The rocky ledges and cliffs were perfect cover. The nearby town had reported numerous track sightings in the snow in town.
 
trblmkr said:
I was talking about bears, not pigs and I have no idea what you are getting on about.
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Never been around wild boar then I guess? Non-native but nastier than shit.

I was down in Merritt Wildlife National Refuge, which surrounds Cape Kennedy, and walking on a boardwalk trail birdwatching early one am, I found a pile of baby wild pigs sleeping...they looked like little striped water melons. Mama was nowhere to be found. I took some pics and then stepped ever so gently off the boardwalk into the wiregrass. They immediately started to rouse and make noises. I stepped back onto boardwalk, they stopped. Tried again, same thing. I made sure there was a tree high enough to climb nearby. Tried one more time and heard crashing in the brush. I was gone, lol. Not stickin' around for mama.
 
Nothing exotic, just an encounter with a St Bernard when I was about 10 or so. Pup was friendly enough to give me a big hug. I was staring at it about mid chest.
More recently, when we had just moved here, a Great Pyrenees found its way here and hung out for a few hours every morning. I suppose he/she (who could tell with all that hair) was bored with mom and/or dad being at work. So I was getting something from the car and pup came over for a greeting, knocking me over. Tail was wagging and I knew I was ok, but dang, it took me by surprise.
Sadly, we never found out who that sweet dog belonged to and we haven't seen it since.
 
Was in Thailand and made the touristy mistake of going to a snake-handler show (my then-girlfriend at the time talked me into it). I thought he was just gonna play with cobras, but he wanted to keep the audience on their toes so he would feint like he was about to throw the cobras into the stands. Kept thinking the entire time what if he ****s up and actually throws the damn things at us by mistake?
 
multivita-man said:
Was in Thailand and made the touristy mistake of going to a snake-handler show (my then-girlfriend at the time talked me into it). I thought he was just gonna play with cobras, but he wanted to keep the audience on their toes so he would feint like he was about to throw the cobras into the stands. Kept thinking the entire time what if he ****s up and actually throws the damn things at us by mistake?
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Meh, just run. Cobras have small, fixed fangs (unlike pit vipers) and that's why they rear up so high to strike. They have to grab you and almost 'chew' to inject venom. Pit vipers like rattlesnakes can strike and release pretty quickly (they can also choose to strike and not release any venom).
 
Lursa said:
Meh, just run. Cobras have small, fixed fangs (unlike pit vipers) and that's why they have to rear up so high to strike. They have to grab you and almost 'chew' to inject venom. Pit vipers like rattlesnakes can strike and release pretty quickly.
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Good to know. I came across green tree vipers out in the wild in Malaysia, but we were warned and since I was usually never far from people and hiked during the day, they were usually spotted.

Other than that experience, honestly, probably the experience that has occasionally made me stop in my tracks is coming across a deer buck on the trail. Deer are usually ones to keep their distance from people, especially wherever they're hunted. But during rut season, they run out of ****s to give quickly.
 
multivita-man said:
Good to know. I came across green tree vipers out in the wild in Malaysia, but we were warned and since I was usually never far from people and hiked during the day, they were usually spotted.

Other than that experience, honestly, probably the experience that has occasionally made me stop in my tracks is coming across a deer buck on the trail. Deer are usually ones to keep their distance from people, especially wherever they're hunted. But during rut season, they run out of ****s to give quickly.
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Oh, there are other venomous snakes, like mambas, that will chase you down and kick your ass with their small, fixed fangs. But they are not cobras.
 
I was snorkeling alone in Key West. I was 20 years old. It had been raining for several days and visibility in the water was very poor. I could only see maybe 15-20 feet.

All of a sudden I see something heading my way at full speed. Within a second a huge gray creature was barreling down on me. At the last second, the creature threw his tail straight up and came to a dead stop an inch from my face. And then, just as fast, he was gone.

My heart was pounding out of my chest. I made my way to the shore, and laid on the beach, hoping my heart would calm down.
I had just almost been killed by an eight-foot long Bottlenose Dolphin . As best I can tell, the poor visibility caused the dolphin to think the reflection from my facemask was a small fish, a snack. At the last second, the dolphin realized his mistake and threw up his tail, coming face-to-face with me. If he had hit me, I probably would have been knocked unconscious and drowned. They may have never found my body.
 
I was in Yosemite about 8 years back in a tent on the farthest edge of the camping area.

About 4 am, one of the local grizzlies decided to spend about 5 minutes sniffing the exterior of my tent. Ended with a snort that I took as pure annoyance, no food, other than me. 😄

He moved on.

When I went out at first sunlight, I saw that he had managed to score a box of breakfast cereal from somebody.
 
I had an experience with a black bear that could have been scary but just turned out to be interesting. While living in Connecticut I was on a ladder painting the second story of our house and a large black bear came into the yard and wandered up to the foot of the ladder. Our yellow lab was barking her head off but the bear didn't seem to care at all. She wandered around sniffing for awhile and then waddled off into the woods behind our house. We later found her den just about 20 feet inside the woods.
 
I was hitchhiking from Nairobi down to Mombasa, the driver was going to Voi, so he dropped me off at the cutoff to Voi. Later got picked up by a truck driver. The guy said (in Swahili) "What the hell you doing? Don't you know there are lions out here?"

Oh shit. Glad I didn't see any. Well, I did have on my Masai choker that keeps away danger.....
 
Safiel said:
About 4 am, one of the local grizzlies decided to spend about 5 minutes sniffing the exterior of my tent.
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Reminds me -- my tent was in the Serengeti game park, stupidly not too far from a watering hole. Freaking hippo came lumbering around. Frankly, I now wonder how I survived the two years I lived over there, lol.
 
Safiel said:
I was in Yosemite about 8 years back in a tent on the farthest edge of the camping area.

About 4 am, one of the local grizzlies decided to spend about 5 minutes sniffing the exterior of my tent. Ended with a snort that I took as pure annoyance, no food, other than me. 😄

He moved on.

When I went out at first sunlight, I saw that he had managed to score a box of breakfast cereal from somebody.
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There are no grizzlies in CA. They were exterminated back in the 40's if not earlier.

If a rare new adventurer has moved down thru the Cascades to N. CA, that's possible but I dont think there have even been grizzly sightings in OR.
 
I like to walk for exercise, and in my hometown, people like to have mean dogs. These mean dogs are sometimes not leashed or fenced, and they are generally not happy to see people who walk for exercise. I have had several negative experiences with mean dogs. I have stopped walking our dogs when we are in my hometown. While walking the dogs tonight, I was thinking that everyone should probably carry pepper spray by default. In the best case scenario, you have pepper spray in your pocket that you don't need.
 
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