What strange wild animal experiences have you had? Inspired by Belle2003 thread

[wishuponastarforever]

Belle2003 posted a very interesting thread about a bear who wandered into a hospital emergency room. It got me to thinking about nature and humans mixing as we develop more and more land. I started thinking about my own experiences....

We lived outside St. Louis, Missouri in a sub-division. There was a farm with cornfields next door to us. We had a rabid fox come out of the corn field. Naturally, it had to be destroyed.


In a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah we had a mink in our front yard in the middle of the afternoon. There had been a mink farm close by years prior. A few must have escaped and bred on their own. It wasn't intimitated by us - in fact it reared on it's hind legs and threatened us.

The strangest encounter was a young Moose wandered down the canyon (which was quite a distance) and wound up in our neighborhood under a pine tree to rest. Our street was blocked off until the moose was captured and returned to the forest.

What encounters have you had???

 

[monkeyboy]

Rabid Skunk

Crazy fox in backyard

Stray goats


deer that come up on the deck

 

[LindaG4458]

Mother bear and cub on neighbor's deck

Adult bear sitting on plastic cover of dumpster. Cover sagged, bear reached in and had lunch.

Moose walking across back yard to get to swampy pond

Otter family crossing from pond in middle of development to drainage culvert in FL

 

[crz4mm2]

Racoon in the rafters of the back porch roof! Made quite the racket too when we tried to shoo it away.

More racoons in the barn, some hanging down through the roof.

Lots of deer in the backyard too.
Oh the joy of living in the country.

 

[4greatboys]

If I see a turtle in the road I stop and move him off to the ditch or wherever so they wont be run over by a car. Well once I stopped and as I approached the turtle I saw he had a long tail--similar in looks to an alligator tail. Well I still went over to move him--grabbing his lower shell and boy he went wild trying to bite me. I may add his neck was longer than a regular turtle. Since this took a couple of minutes now there was traffice in both lanes watching me look like an idiot trying to get this mean turtle out of the road. I finally just got something from my car that I could push him off in the ditch with. lol

 

[bumcat]

If I see a turtle in the road I stop and move him off to the ditch or wherever so they wont be run over by a car. Well once I stopped and as I approached the turtle I saw he had a long tail--similar in looks to an alligator tail. Well I still went over to move him--grabbing his lower shell and boy he went wild trying to bite me. I may add his neck was longer than a regular turtle. Since this took a couple of minutes now there was traffice in both lanes watching me look like an idiot trying to get this mean turtle out of the road. I finally just got something from my car that I could push him off in the ditch with. lol

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I found a turtle in the road once and it had a bolt glued to it's back. It was upright so a rope could be looped thru it. I guess someone use to walk the turtle (like that's possible) or just did it for meanness. I took it home and had to take the bolt off before relasing him. It might have been someones pet but I figured too bad if it was - you just don't glue objects to a turtle. It would have gotten hung up on stuff in the bayou and probably die.

Not too many wild animal experiences around here.

 

[grinningghost]

Once a big iguana came running down our suburban street. Of course, he was probably someone's pet that got loose, but it was a weird sight just the same.

 

[Virgo10]

Having a moose walk into our campsite in Maine. Ooo look! A tourist.

Different trip to the same place in Maine (Baxter State Park) seeing two adult deer with Bambi! We got within 3 feet of the fawn before Mommy Deer came over and pushed it away.

I swear I saw a Flamingo in Massachusetts when I was a kid!

Finally seeing a family of wild turkeys last summer. Wow, are they big!

I've also stopped traffic to let a turtle get across the street.

Roberta

 

[Beth76]

I live in the suburbs of St. Louis, a few miles from the "country", but my area is pretty built up. I was walking in my neighborhood and I saw two peacocks just walking around. It was about 5 minutes before someone came driving by and saw them too. We watched them for awhile as they just wandered around the neighborhood. About a week later, I saw them on my street, flying from rooftop to rooftop on the other side of the street. We found out that they did belong to someone who lived nearby on a farm.

My neighbor's brother found a big snake in his car engine. It did a lot of damage to his car. It turned out to be a neighbor's pet python. The story is on snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/photos/carsnake.asp

 

[Snowwark]

A couple of years ago, on a very fowl afternoon, I looked out the back window, and there was a chicken dancing through my backyard! Does that count?

One day up at the cottage, I entered the side door, turned around to shut it behind me, and there was a bear on the path I'd just been on, not more than 15 away from the door!! I was so surprised because we know there are lots of bears around there, but I always have my bear radar on, and I hadn't seen or heard a thing!! My faulty equipment I guess....

When we were little, on Easter morning, a rabbit (big rabbit!!) used to come into our bedrooms and leave lots of chocolate easter treats for us. I thought it looked suspiciously like my Dad, though.

 

[Talking Hands]

Went to the Everglades with a bunch of kids from Miami and Boston. A Suzuki Violin/Viola group from Boston came to do a concert with our group here. At one of the areas there was this big alligator sunning on the pathway. One of the mothers told her 2 sons to go stand by the alligator because she wanted a picture so they go about 10 ft from the gator. Mom tells them, no, go stand by the alligators head. Fortunately just about this time a park ranger walked up and told the kids that they were too close to the gator. What really got me is it wasn't one of the Mom's from Boston. She was from Miami! One crazy lady!

When I was 9 yo I went to Girl Scout Camp outside of Killeen, TX. Several of us climbed a tree and were sitting there when we noticed a snake coming at us down the branch. Jumped from the tree. Counselors captured the snake (baby) and it turne out to be a cooperhead. I have hated snakes ever since.

Encounters with various types of wild life at Ft Wilderness including bunnies that hopped into the Backyard Barbecue. Also a duck my daughter caught near our campsite.

 

[disneygals]

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving the kids to various playdates, etc and had the following animals cross my path..3 squirrels, a chipmunk, a bird that wouldn't get out of the road. and a turtle that I did stop til he got to the side of the road. It's amazing that I didn't hit any of them.

Last Monday, I was driving back home in the a.m. from driving my oldest to Jr High and saw a baby black bear walking down someone's driveway! I thought I was hallucinating! I couldn't stop because I had to get my other kids off to school. I looked up bear totems and found that my totem is the bear, which is very bizarre to me considering the week I have had.

 

[Bethshaya]

My friend Sal loves animals and he is also a creature of habit.

He would go the same way home from work every day.

One day on a small out of the way side street he travels, there was a van with animal control logos parked on the side of the road.

An official looking man flagged him down and asked him to stop. So he did. When he rolled his window down to talk to the man, the man said there was a very rare species of swamp snail crossing the road to go to their mating habitat.

After 30 minutes of waiting for this snail to cross the road, he finially got out of the car and walked over to see it.

We'll, to make a long story short, there is no such thing as this swamp snail and the animal control personnel were really personnel from "Candid Camera".

They gott'em good and he was on one of the TV episodes.

It was a perfect spoof for him, as he is still a huge animal lover.

 

[newholiday]

About 8yrs back we had a moose come down the side of our yard, stop on the top of our driveway, continue down the drive and walk across the circle!
It was the same summer we had a hot air balloon land in our circle!

 

[two4ruff]

A gecko lizard went up my husband's pants on a visit to Florida.

Yes, white men CAN dance....

 

[stormi65]

I live in Raleigh, NC in a quiet wooded neighborhood. Last week I was on the back deck and a huge black bear walked by towards our woods! This part of NC is not supposed to have bears. The bear was just strolling along and went and sat in our yard for awhile. We called 911 but it took them 30 minutes to get to our house, they put a "crime scene" tape up and took a statement. That was rather bizarre. Then another call came in about the bear in the next neighborhood, but then it ran down some railroad tracks and until it makes a fuss, the wildlife folks want to leave it alone. Everytime I hear rustling now in the woods I think a giant bear is back there!!!!!

 

[two4ruff]

I put a deer that had been hit by a car in the back of my Toyota and took it to the vet.

My husband will never forgive me for that one!

PS No, the deer didn't make it...

 

[Brer_Papa]

I've been an avid outdoors type for well over 40 years now....I've seen a lot...

things such as:

seeing a woodchuck sunnng itself in a tree....

walking down a creek bed in a gully and having a large white tail buck approach and doing a complete backkk flip when he spotted me...

catching snapping turtles by placing a tree limb by it's mouth and lifting it up when he latched on...

picking corn and having a flock of turkeys keep the same distance between me on the tractor...i slow down...they slow down...i give it the gas...they move the same speed...

being in the woods before dawn and watching turkeys "drop" from their roost to take flight....

seeing a bobcat stalking a filed mouse when i emerged from a stand of pines...

coming upon a pair of Canadian geese with young ones....having them "hiss" at me to guard the goslings...

watching a variety of fish...trout, black bass and suckers....going upstream throgh the shallow waters....

& so much more...the most important of all i have seen and learned....Mother Nature is always suprising and unparalleled in her beauty....

 

[onecoolmama]

I lived in some other countries for a short while. I while I was in one I rode an elephant. But not sure that counts...