What's the closest encounter you've had with a wild animal?

When we went to the Kruger Park last year i was filming a lioness that was walking towards our car, i was partly out the window because she was behind the car. Of course you don’t quite realize how close the object is that you’re recording while you’re looking through the camera, so she came to withing a few meters of me when my SO finally started closing my window and told me to get my ass back in the car.

Well out in the wild not in the zoo. It would be on the boat. Dolphin will swim real close and jump and play by the boat. It is real cool. They will race your boat too. One of the things I love about Florida.

A hawk perched on the lamppost across the street from my house. I watched it for maybe half a minute before it flew away. That’s not very close at all, but it was so beautiful.

Dunno if this applies but I was , years ago, on our patio and a huge , long fat black snake fell off the roof and SPLAT right in front of me. Then it crawled full speed up the dryer vent and I never saw it again. of course I knew I’d find it in the dryer but did not.

@Aster EEEWWW!!! I would have got a heart attack right there, probably…

When in my late teens hunting Grouse here in B.C Canada ,and not seeing any birds at all that day,saw a brown patch of fur around a brush pile thinking it was the neighbors dog I was going to kick it’s butt home,and around came about a 2 year old Cougar(Mountain lion)
wich shocked the heck out of me,but the big cat made no moves against me,and it and I watched each other for about a half hour then I slowly backed off and left,and left the cat to go about it’s business,and no I wasn’t afraid cause I had a shotgun in my hands and at the ready,and thank goodness I didn’t have to use it.

@aster GROSSSS!!!!!! That is insane!!!

Other than woodland creatures, I’d have to say a nurse shark that was within 20 feet of me in the ocean. I was a dramatic teenager from the country, so you can imagine the flailing and level 10 spastics.

And when I was 3, the same reaction occurred with a 5’ tall Miss Piggy impersonator. I think that counts as an “encounter”.

I think it had been in a pine tree because we had lots of huge pines around the house. ewww that SPLAT noise was horrible. I think it was a water moccasin? You guys make me laugh with your reactions.

Nothing too huge or scary, just smallish critters. We’ve rescued baby birds, baby bunnies, and once a baby raccoon. I take them to someone qualified to care for them, and only when I’m sure they are orphaned or abandoned. My mom used to try to raise things like that herself, and they always died.

We see snakes all the time, mainly because my kids seek them out to catch them. Once a rather large garter snake bit my son on the leg (he was two at the time). Another time, I was walking across the back yard toward our deck, and was shocked to see a red shouldered hawk perched right on the deck railing. I didn’t want to move because it was amazing to be standing only about ten feet away from it!

Oh, I have to changed what I said about no big or scary animals. When we were on vacation in South Carolina, the kids and I were taking a walk past a pond on the edge of a golf course. We looked over at the pond, and could not believe that a big alligator was staring right back at us! He was a few feet out from the grass, and my insane children wanted to get closer to the pond for a better look. The alligator started to slowly drift toward land, and we were outta there! I’ve seen Crocodile Dundee, so I know how those things can leap out at you! I did take a picture though.

The most evil wild animal we are dealing with right now is…the chipmunk. I used to think they were cute, but lately they’ve been mocking me! They steal tomatoes from my garden, then sit right outside the back door where I can see them. They eat half the tomato, drop it, get another one, eat half of it, all while staring right at me. I know they are laughing their fuzzy little butts off. They leave the tomato skins all over the deck so I can see just how many they are eating. Little bastards.

MissAusten Holy @#$#$#$#$#$!!#!@$ that photo made me shudder!! EEK!

That reminded me that I once got strategically ambushed by a fluther of squirrels once. Campus squirrels can be real a-holes…probably bff with those chipmunks.

Whilst driving along a lane in Scotland once, a golden eagle came into my path and flew in about 2 metres in front of the car for about 4 wing-flaps… it was magical (and huge!)

Bats(usually when I open the windows in certain months). I can always ask my servant/maid to handle them. Actually,I want to pet them but they look like rats and my cats wouldn’t like this idea.

@harple Do you really say whilst ? I might start, it sounds so fancy, and proper.

@Doctor_D That’s incredible. I was fascinated with bats as a kid :) I would have loved to see a few of them. A friend claims to have seen a bat here once, but I don’t believe them.

In my sophomore year at uni, a golden eagle swooped very close to my head on a biology class field trip. We were collecting dirt and water samples at the Wisconsin River, and I may have gotten too near to a nest.

I don’t count deer or kangaroos in front of me while I’m in an enclosed vehicle on the highway to be an encounter.

Ooh, here’s a pic of my lion too! I had an encounter with a wild mouse too that bit my finger, but the lion one was more interesting. :)

link

This guy and his daughter today came pretty close to an Asian black bear.

My closest encounter was with a scorpion who i just identified in time on a shirt of mine that i just pulled out of my suitcase.
When i told the landlady about it, she called her husband who squashed it under his foot.

In the past five years, if seen antelope, deer, eagles, hawks, cougars, black bears, moose in the wild and fairly close (as in within 50 feet).

I saw many wonderful wild animals on a game drive in SA. The closest encounter being with a family of Rhino’s. No wild stories unfortunately. Just joyful observation. Sharing space with these creatures is a very humbling experience.

The other day I took my 2 dogs to the mountains for a swim. One of them was investigating something in some tallish grass. Then the other one wanted to see. From a distance I would see the first dog jumping back then getting close again. I run up there to see what they are doing. They were attempting to play with a pissed off rattler. So I grab one dog and the other does an end run to get close to the snake. I manage to get control of the two, and back in the truck we go. It was about time to go anyway.

When I was volunteering in South Africa we had the weekend off, so we went to a zoo where animals would roam around and you’d drive around in your car through the park. The sign said to keep your windows rolled up. I was in the passenger seat and the window created a glare from my camera so I rolled it down. Now, it was feeding time for the lions, and normally how their social structure is, is the male lions eat first. One female lion decided to try to get first pick and the male lion didn’t like this so he ran at her and past her and rubbed up against my side of the car, bearing his teeth! I was so freaked out!

There was also a part of the zoo where you could pet and play with a baby lion. They were so used to being with humans I don’t even think they were wild anymore. One cub was gnawing at my friends hand, playfully of course.

On a different weekend off we went to a similar park but the animals were in cages. they were treated very well, the cages were my house x 8 There, you could pet a “king cheetah” and get a picture. I did this, but something else happened that’s even more exciting! They had a few cheetahs that took turns in a smaller room where you would pet them. I was leaning on the fence waiting to pet the cheetah when the zookeeper said to move from the fence. I moved. Not one minutes later the cheetah stood up on its hind legs cheetah are fucking huge full length and knawed on the fence where I stood earlier.

Oh wait, i forgot about the elephant thing! One time, in the Kruger Park again, we were driving around as usual and there was a heard of elephants around crossing the road. We were watching in front of us as some elephants were crossing with their babies and a few older ones too, then from behind there was a moody elephant that came charging in our direction, however we couldn’t really put foot and go forward because there were elephants crossing the road there, but we did anyway and luckily they just finished crossing the road when we got to them.

And then during our last trip to the Kruger Park (the same one with the lion thing) we were on our way back to our bungalow at the end of the day, but then far up ahead on our road we see this huge elephant walking down the road in our direction – they’re big so you can’t just drive past them and go on your merry way. Us and a bunch of other cars started reversing to get out of its way, and everybody passed us so that we were left in front with the elephant right in front of our car, just walking down the road like it was on a Sunday stroll (see elephant here ) Anyway, we had a deadline to get in our gate before 6PM otherwise you get a fine, so this was not the best time for this to be happening. We ended up having to reverse like this for a whole 10 minutes nonstop until it finally decided to leave the road.

@Doctor_D We had a bat in our house once. My daughter was about 7 years old, and came downstairs at night to tell me there was a bird in her room. Skeptical, I followed her upstairs. When I saw it fly past her doorway, I knew it wasn’t a bird. My husband was out of town, and I had no idea what to do. All I could think was “Rabies!” I called Animal Control and explained the problem. The guy was like, “Just open the window and let it fly out.” Duh! So, armed with my camera and a big butterfly net, I braved the bat. It didn’t look that scary when hanging from my daughter’s curtains, but once it started flying around the room, it looked huge! I took the screen off of the window and tried to herd it out with the net. It wasn’t working.

Finally I managed to catch it in the net as it flew past me, then I held the net out the window so it could climb out and fly away. We never figured out how it got into the room. My daughter thought it was the coolest thing to ever happen to her. Far from being scared, she laughed through the entire experience and was sad to see the bat leave. I did get one decent photo of the little guy.

When I was in my teens, I was cycling along a country lane near my home, and a kestrel flew up over the hedge onto my side. It flew alongside my bike for aboit 100 yards, right beside me, close enough that I could have reached out and touched it. Then it went back over the hedge again and was gone.

I’ve also been very close to wild badgers, which come into my mother-in-law’s neighbour’s garden at night.

@Frenchfry yes – I do! But I am far from fancy or proper!!