Have you ever had any experiences with wild animals, Wauf? (for example: saw a bear, cougar, duck really close)
How did it go?
Have you ever had any experiences with wild animals? (for example: saw a bear, cougar, duck really close). How did it go?
Have you ever had any experiences with wild animals, Wauf? (for example: saw a bear, cougar, duck really close)
How did it go?
i was hiking in NY one time. was in a thick patch of brush, suddenly came upon a clearing and then a deer just appeared about 6 feet in front of me. didn't give the slightest care about me. i fricking wish i had my henry big boy on me at the time, i would have dropped that tick vector without a second thought
Tons. They are virtually always conflict averse and will beat it if you get too close/make too much noise. Obviously with larger mammals (moose, bear/esp with cubs) keep your distance or get out of there if you can.
I have seen bears from a long distance, never too close unless at a zoo/sanctuary where they are more tame.
Moose are pretty common around here, and my little 35 pound dog apparently thinks he can take one because he always tries to run up on them barking before I yell at him to get back. They are surprisingly patient tho, never had one charge or kick. One did sort of shuffle his foot but thankfully my dog got out of there and we moved along quickly.
Moose are the most crazy bipolar animal animal depending on when in the year you encounter them. Once they get hormonal they're a fricking and killing machine. Otherwise they're very gentle and even inquisitive to point they can come right up to you. Not that you can trust the calendar anymore with animals than people but I've met a lot of nice moose and some downright scary ones.
I work at a park and a golf course, so I get a lot of cool encounters. One of the coolest was probably when a fox ran right in front of me while I was on the phone with a visitor at the park and a car was coming up, so I couldn't get my camera to snap a pic. After I got off the phone and helped the lady in the car, I saw it again so I grabbed my camera and snapped this pic of it.
Had a shearwater crash into me at night once
I was walking along the main path in a deer park in the UK, mid-week and raining so it was super quiet. 3 huge red deer stags were just hanging out right next to the main path. I just stood with them for a while to get some pictures and admire them before going on my way.
The only other cool interactions I've had with wildlife has been rockpooling. The UK truly is an ecological dead-zone.
A bird pooped on my head from a tree when I was a child. In my culture, that now means I have good luck. For the most part my luck has been decent. I think I am their champion since then because birds have been a bit too chill with me. Pic related is downtown Chicago. I stuck my hand out to beckon this bird and the little fella actually came. I also rescued another bird downtown that was stunned from blunt force trauma or something. The one in the picture flew off after I headed to class. I assume it was just curious or used to someone feeding it. I hope birds just like me rather than anything logical.
Ironically, I'm asthmatic and heavily affected by bird dust. I wish I could keep birds, but that's life.
Bird dust? Maybe you could keep silkies, they don't have normal feathers.
Chickens in general produce a lot of dust and, iinm, silkies especially so.
Me and my mate built a boat, took it out the water, we're sitting low. A basking comes right along side us and I punch it to 'scare' it away, skinned my knuckles on that one. I don't think it even cared for us.
Chilling on the beach one night, a seal comes waddles up and lays beside me. Snuggles up with me for about 10 minutes then some other people come walking across the beach and scare it away.
Woke up with a viscacha in my tent. No idea how it got it in.
Driving and heard a thump on the roof, pulled over and got to investigate and there's a tawny on the roof. It perched there chilling while I talked shit to it as the sun set. Was pretty chill.
Got stalked by wolves, that shit was not fun!
>a seal comes waddles up and lays beside me. Snuggles up with me for about 10 minutes
bullshit
I like to do my shopping very very early in the morning just as the supermarkets open. I went to the grocery store early one Saturday just before Thanksgiving. It was still dark out and cold as shit so I decided to drive rather than walk the two miles there so I went out to the car, which was parked right next to a phone pole. I was opening the car door when I heard scratching sounds behind me. I turned to see what it was and was greeted by a raccoon on the phone pole as close to my face as anything. Like, imagine how close you keep your phone when you're looking at it and this thing was much, much closer than that. I could practically lick it. I said "why hello Mr Raccoon" as a jogger girl passed on the opposite side of the street (guess she could tolerate the cold better than I can, go figure), potentially hearing me talking to a wild animal. I thought that if she did indeed hear me, she'd just think I'm full of whimsy and all awesome and shit. I hoped it brightened her day.
The raccoon was quite pudgy and cute.
Also, before I moved to the US and was a wee lad in southern Italy, I took an istryx or whatever you call it home with me. Istrice in Italian. They look like beavers with quills.
For some reason, it wasn't threatened by me and was okay with being carefully stroked and I got it to follow me. I don't remember how.
People don't believe me about this one, but my aunt had a place in a rural area near Mt Cassino in Italy (in case Americans have chosen to name one of their places that like how they have Versailles Pennsylvania, Naples Florida and Amsterdam Texas). At her rural place near Mt Cassino Italy, she had something of a farm. And in this farm she had a fricking lion. I don't remember the lion and only barely remember the aunt but there is a photo at my mum's place of a three year old me petting a lion and looking at his teeth. His name was Sinbad, btw.
Where was this?
Which one?
Shark, seal and owl were England.
Viscacha was Peru,
Wolves were China.
>I punched a shark and humped a seal
>I saw a fox on a golf course
Somewhere, between these two extremes, normal people live.
>stalked by wolved
I doubt that is the full story, considering this is coming from someome who would try to punch a filter feeder away
At Teddy Roosevelt there was a lone horse that was walking the trail, it stopped maybe 20 feet in front of me and just kinda stared at me for a few minutes. I moved over to the side and it continued walking, very awkward interaction.
A bunch of random birds have landed directly on me in the past for no particular reason, including a goose. Also, one time I was kayaking and and a family of deer jumped out of the woods in front of me and started playing by charging each other in the water. I dunno if the little frickers couldn't stop or something, but they slammed directly into each other and let out a whine as they flew horizontally after colliding.
In Rocky Mountain National Park, had lunch at a picnic table right by the continental divide with a marmot just chilling about 4ft away the whole time. It yelled at me and my wife a couple times and backed off a bit, then came back and just sat there watching us. I'm assuming someone fed it at the table a few times and it hoped we would as well.
>it hoped we would as well.
… And did you?