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Your encounters with wildlife

I blocked Knights avatar so long ago that I forgot he even had one. Sorry, guy!
 
I've been bitten by a black snake and a garter snake. Neither lived very long after that. Those were some nasty bites.
 
In the past week I've found four skinks in my kitchen... does that count?

Also a couple years ago, I went outside in my bare feet to get something out of the car in the driveway. As I'm walking back to the front door, I looked down and saw a baby copperhead right up against the brick step onto my front porch, and it was pissed off. I must have stepped right over top of it as I walked out. I knew they were generally around, but that is the only one I've seen on my property in nine years here.
 
rjequalsmj said:
one raccoon I could deal with but after that I think I would do something about the cat door.
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Well, they do try to block off the door at night so nothing can go in and out, but there was only so much they could do without messing up the cats too much (they didn't like collars, so couldn't do one of those automatic cat door locks and they were used to going in and out). I think my mom gets a kick out of it more than anything.

RubbinsRacin said:
I was on a work trip in Brazil with an environmental studies professor, Dr. Bob, who we used to contract with for some stuff.
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Is this the same Dr. Bob that did (still does?) Eurotour? If so, I didn't get to know him all that well, but he was pretty fun/funny on the 2001 trip I did.
 
The grossest experience with wildlife I've had was when I had my low rider pickup back in the day. There was a dead swollen opossum in the road and by the time I noticed it, I was going too fast to stop and there was opposing traffic. I hit the brakes hard and released them quick hoping I could skip over it. The front of the truck lifted over it, but I heard a pop/crunch below the cab. I knew I would have some goo to wash out, but it rained hard later that day so I thought it could wait until the rest of the truck was ready to be washed. Nope. The next day the truck smelled like rotten ass. I went to a manual car wash so I could shove the hose under the car and blast away. 3/4 of a rotten opossum carcass shot out the other side of the truck and smashed against the wall. IT SMELLED SO BAD! I immediately dropped to my knees and started uncontrollably vomiting and crying. Not boohoo crying, more like a million peeled onions type of crying. It was all I could do to crawl back in the truck and drive away. Grossest thing I have ever experienced. I started hysterically laughing on my drive home when I thought about the next person using the stall. Opossum carcass on one side and a massive puddle of puke on the other.
 
I was walking on UNC's campus the other day and I saw a kid 'owling' in one of the alcoves in the business school parking deck. Luckily he didn't try anything crazy.
 
this is not me, fortunately:

CORRECTIONAPTOPIXIndiaWildlife120248--300x300.jpg


http://www.nypost.com/leopard_injures_people_in_india
 
I killed a small copperhead in Kmart with a rubber hammer when I worked there (again - back in the day). I knew I would get at most 2 swings before I was screwed if I didn't hit it. Damn thing was slithering through the electronics department. Totes got it on the first swing. Then I sat a wet floor cone over it and paged for a cleanup.
 
1. Had a rabid fox chilling on my driveway when I got home from school, I pulled up about 10 feet from it and it didn't move a muscle, but it had white shit all over its mouth.

2. Camping in East Texas last summer, a family of armadillos decided to walk through my camp site.

3. A couple years ago my friends and I were on a boat near Emerald Isle and about 500 yds from shore we found a huge school of Bluefish or Shad. Two of us jumped right in the middle of it, and it was pretty awesome. There were probably thousands of them in the school, but I never felt one touch me.
 
I didn't see this first hand, but my dad saw it and I know the people it happened to.
Anyway, this happened a several years ago, but my parents are friends with this family who has kids that are teenagers now, but when this happened they were probably 4 and 7 or something like that. It was Easter, or one for the kid's birthday or something and one of the kids got one of those floppy earred bunny rabbits for a pet. Of course immediately they were all lovey dovey with it and played with it, but as kids do, they lost interest fairly quickly. Everyone was hanging out in their back yard and the rabbit was free rangeing (their backyard is enclosed so the rabbit couldn't go anywhere (it was probably too stupid to anyway). The kids, who had lost interest in the rabbit, were playing something else while outside and the rabbit was just kind of hopping around minding it's own business. My dad and the other father were talking and happened to be standing next to eachother looking in the direction of the rabbit when all of a sudden this shadow eclipses them, they look up and it's a big hawk or an eagle or something and it swoops down and nails the rabbit and takes it off and eats it (Dad says he watched the bird fly away and saw it land and actually start eating the rabbit, although I suppose that is probably some creative licensing on his part) All that was left was a tuft of fur. the kids didn't see this and when they asked where the rabbit was the father said it was tired and he put it down for a nap, which bought him just enough time to run to the pet store and get another rabbit.....which from what I was told looked completely different, but the kids didn't notice.


I told the story about my dog attacked a Doe, made it abort its fetus, then ate the fetus on another thread....but that was pretty surreal.
 
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My dad was swimming in the gulf coast off southern florida. Just standing in water about waist deep in the morning. All the sudden a big ass manatee pops up and looks him right in the face about 5 feet away. Scared the beejesus out of him and he raced back to shore. Apparently it's rare that they venture into the ocean, but sometimes they do, and are very curious animals.
 
also when I was in Galapagos, we used to swim/bathe with the sea lions and the juvies would play with our shampoo bottles and then swim right at us and swerve at the last minute. They were so cute it was hard to remember not to touch them/that their parents weren't as laid back. We also would see hammerheads out in the water...a little scary
 
Best college buddy is a city boy from Chicago, I am farm boy. One day after a spring break trip he and I are staying at my parent's house on the farm. They go to work. I wake up and there is a wounded and likely rabid raccoon in the garage, bloody raccoon footprints all over the place. Naturally I go fetch a shotgun and then wake up my buddy. He's a little surprised to be woken up by a guy with a shotgun but he's a good sport.

Next I realize that if I waste this raccoon in my dad's garage Dad is going to be pissed, so I get the push broom and move the poor thing out of there before putting him out of his misery. My buddy the Chicago tough guy is cowering behind a door the whole time. At least he helped me bury it. Good times.

Most of my other stories involve yellow jackets and gasoline and aren't all that interesting.
 
Did forget one other good one. When I was a little kid a groundhog got confused and hid in our woodpile by the basement. It was too scared of the dog to leave and at the time I was too young to do anything about it, so we waited until dad got home. Dad assesses the situation and decides to be merciful and run it back out in the field. So he gets a Louisville slugger and pokes it to get it moving away from the house while I hold back the dog.

Well it gets halfway down the driveway and things are going well, when suddenly the stupid animal decides to turn on Dad and try to bite him. Dad is only about 5'9 160 but he's farm strong, and he gives that groundhog one one-handed swing with the slugger and it's game over.

I never talked back to Dad much after that.
 
awakeandready said:
YES!
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Didn't feel like typing it up so I copy/pasted it from the original thread

......Had a black lab named Spooky (I swear to god it wasn't racially inspired, but everyone thought it was, the name came from a book about a hunting dog that one of my dad's friends wrote....the thought never even occured to us until a year or two later) Other than being the best dog ever (seriously, she knew like 50 or 60 commands and was robotically obedient after the age of two) she was also a physical specimen. At her peak she was probably 90lbs and not an ounce of fat on her. My dad and I were going to take her on a run and we lived in a neighborhood that was really wooded and there were lots of deer. We had about an acre and a half with an invisible fence around it. Spooky never figured out the collar was what shocked her and she was only comfortable leaving the yard in one spot, and then only when we told her it was okay. That spot in the yard was the very corner of the yard. Dad and I left out the driveway and started jogging down towards the corner that Spooky would come out at. It was 100 yards or so and Spooky liked to wait until we got passed her crossing spot and then get a full head of steam and break through and then catch up with us. She could motor and just like every time she hit the street at full tilt. Dad and I were about 50 yards down the road from the crossing spot and a deer had popped out of the woods behind us but in front of her, the deer saw us first and started the opposite direction, but they didn't see Spooky coming at full tilt until it was too late. Spooky hit that deer like a freaking lion taking down a gazzelle....it was awesome, clamped down on the neck and everything, that deer was dead (and in reality probably did die later) until dad and I came up and literally beat Spooky off (get your head out of the gutter) the deer. There was blood and hair and sinew all in her mouth and after the deer scampered away she just sat there and looked so proud and looked at us like she'd done the greatest thing ever (it was pretty cool). Anyway, my dad notices another bloody spot with a pink, saucer sized thing in the middle of it about 15 feet away, upon closer inspection, it was the aborted fetus that the deer was carrying. We're both kind of standing over it and all of a sudden Spooky comes up and goobles up the fetus in one gulp... then she starts off down the street on the jogging route that we always take....Dad and I just kind of looked at eachother shrugged our shoulders and followed her
 
Deacon923 said:
Did forget one other good one. When I was a little kid a groundhog got confused and hid in our woodpile by the basement. It was too scared of the dog to leave and at the time I was too young to do anything about it, so we waited until dad got home. Dad assesses the situation and decides to be merciful and run it back out in the field. So he gets a Louisville slugger and pokes it to get it moving away from the house while I hold back the dog.

Well it gets halfway down the driveway and things are going well, when suddenly the stupid animal decides to turn on Dad and try to bite him. Dad is only about 5'9 160 but he's farm strong, and he gives that groundhog one one-handed swing with the slugger and it's game over.

I never talked back to Dad much after that.
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lolz, my dad and I shoot all kinds of groundhogs in our backyard with our .22 Mag rifle all the time. Crank open a window of our 2nd story and go all Lee Harvey on them.
 
yodeacsgo said:
The grossest experience with wildlife I've had was when I had my low rider pickup back in the day. There was a dead swollen opossum in the road and by the time I noticed it, I was going too fast to stop and there was opposing traffic. I hit the brakes hard and released them quick hoping I could skip over it. The front of the truck lifted over it, but I heard a pop/crunch below the cab. I knew I would have some goo to wash out, but it rained hard later that day so I thought it could wait until the rest of the truck was ready to be washed. Nope. The next day the truck smelled like rotten ass. I went to a manual car wash so I could shove the hose under the car and blast away. 3/4 of a rotten opossum carcass shot out the other side of the truck and smashed against the wall. IT SMELLED SO BAD! I immediately dropped to my knees and started uncontrollably vomiting and crying. Not boohoo crying, more like a million peeled onions type of crying. It was all I could do to crawl back in the truck and drive away. Grossest thing I have ever experienced. I started hysterically laughing on my drive home when I thought about the next person using the stall. Opossum carcass on one side and a massive puddle of puke on the other.
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:laugh::laugh:
 
I was camping in Kakadu National Park in Australia while I was studying abroad. We had gone with a large group outfit and when we arrived at the camping site the tents had all been set-up already. People paired up and I thought I was being a boss getting one of these tents all to myself. I'm a BIG guy and it would have been REALLY uncomfortable to share one of those tents.

After dinner and drinking, we all go to sleep and I stretch out as much as possible in my tent and drift off to sleep. Around 3:30am, I hear some sniffing and walking around my tent definitely coming from more than 1 animal. Then I hear a howl. It sounds like it is right outside the door to my tent. I'm immediately regretting being by myself. The sniffing turns into howling and then growling as a whole pack of dingos start fighting in our camp. There is tussling and growling for 8-10 minutes before everyone runs off. In the morning you could still see some blood in the sand.

I'm glad I didn't piss myself.
 
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