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Closest you've been to a wild animal

SkunkWerX said:
Big Ass Snapping Turtle! whoa, just remembered this one.

At my last house, it was very wet year, lots and lots of rain.
My property sloped downhill toward a creek. I found a Big huge snapping turtle under our magnolia tree. Heard leaves rustling (laying eggs??) figured it was a mouse, chipmunk, bird, hunting grubs or something.
But kept hearing it and went to look.

Holy crap! The head on this thing was as big as a Pitbull.
Turned my rake handle around held rake by the tines, and tapped at his beak, he/she snapped the hardwood end of the rake handle off like it was a toothpick!!
Now I'm thinking, this is way too cool! Maybe I can get it to crush a beer can or some other stuff? :)
I know it can't run after me, but none-the-less you know this thing can bite your whole foot off if you get too close.

I tried to pick it up with a snowshovel but it was too heavy. 80#? I don't know? It made some nasty hissing sounds, you knew it would just EFF you up if you let it.

If anyone ever questrioned the existance of dinosaurs, I can tell ya, this thing is as close to a dinosaur as you need to see to believe.

I knew there was no way to contain it, and I knew where it had come from,
So I left it alone until near dusk, came back it was leaving the tree area, I got it onto a sheet of plywood, and dragged it down my backyard hill, toward the creek, and got into the woods, let it go from there. Didn't want my dog , or others to get in it's way.

It's probably still there today. There is no predator that can EFF with that thing. It was a monster.
Click to expand...

I totaly believe that you met a monster snapping turtle. My mother told me that her brother, my uncle Bobby, found a snapper in southern Ontario when he was a kid. It was so big that he tied a rope around its neck, then over a tree branch and tied to his car bumper. Bobby backed the car up and hung the turtle. Thats all I know or remember about that story. My grandparents owned an auto wreckers and my uncles pulled a lot of crazy stunts when young.
 
Snappers, water mocs, rattlers, gila monsters, too many different lizards to list, scorpions in our shoes, a herd of tarantulas one night in Texas... On a trip thru Yellowstone as a kid, saw all the usual big land mamals - up close, but in a car doesn't really count... mountain goats chewing on our ropes while climbing in the Olympics, as well as an occassional black bear while hiking/camping there...

But for me, personally, the most memorable encounter I've had was in rescuing not one, but two Peregrine Falcons from a highrise rooftop and releasing them while momma and papa watched...

I work in a highrise in Seattle that has had the fortune of having a pair of nesting Peregrines for several years in a row, up until they died about two years ago. One of the ladies in our accounting department was part of the Peregrine watch group that manned the cameras watching the nest box, as well as being involved in banding and weighing the young each year. Well, one year, as the young were fledging, they would tend to land on the rooves of the lower highrises, hang around, and then fly back to the nesting ledge. Unfortunately, one tower called the Rainier Tower has a large area on the roof that is open to the sky, but drops down almost two storys - it's part of the HVAC system and the fans suck the air in down this large square opening. Yup, every now and then one of the eyas's would drop into this opening which is only as big as a large room. Once down, they weren't strong enough to get enough life to fly back out. So, one day the lady in accounting stuck her head out of her office and asked if I wanted to help rescue a young falcon... Bloody hell right I wanted in on this, if just to get out of the office and up on a highrise roof!!! :D

Several of the group meets in the other building, some of us with towels and me with a hinged lidded document box. Building management escorts us up to the roof, we verify there's a falcon in the shaft and we go down to the maintenance door and enter the space... There's this bird with a wingspread of almost four feet, a beak like a scimitar, talons no bigger than a pencil, but wickedly sharp.. fluttering around and screaming for momma! Who just so happened to be perched on a stancion on the roof keeping an eye on things!

We all go in, me with the box, and the others try herding it into a corner and scoop it up with the towels (and it's like a three ring circus 'cause that bird don't wanna cooperate and everybody's worried about getting a chunck taken out 'em!) We finally succeed through herding it and pushing it into the box I'm holding and I flip the box shut - one boxed baby Peregrine Falcon! Thing couldn't have weighed more than a few pounds as it all seemed incredibly lite! But when it tried flapping it's wings around as I went back up the stairs to get to the elevator to get back to the roof, I thought it was going to actually burst the box...

Well, we got out on the roof and they told me to walk out into the middle of it and set it down and let the bird out... But nobody followed me?:( So I go walking out, set the box down and start to flip the lid when this blurry streak zipped over my right shoulder with a rush of wind that literally felt like a solid blow and I looked up and realized Momma had just flown past and pulled up from a dive bomb as she realized the baby was just exiting the box! Baby took off, circled around screeching a little and Momma flew by again and the two headed back to the nesting ledge... Only as I saw this did I realize why nobody came out with me - they all knew one of the adults was around and was likely to perform a straffing run at anybody they felt might be a threat!:eek: Thanks for watching my back, guys!!!

And the only thing cooler than that was that the following year, it happened again and I got to do a repeat performance!!! :D Although I didn't get attacked the second time, but still, it's an incredible rush to be in such an urbanized area as downtown Seattle and be able to deal with, and assist, such a magnificent bird!! :cool:
 
I get up close and personal with wild animals very, very frequently... almost every day. I occasionally touch them, and they occasionally touch me. The last time I touched a wild animal was about a week and a half ago. I was over at my friend's house, when their cat brought in a still-live American robin that it caught. I took it from the cat, and let it go, outside. A few days earlier, the I did the same thing with a California vole that their cat caught. A few days before that, I picked up a coastal range newt from the middle of the road, and put it down in safety, in the muddy grass a few feet off the road.

I guess the most interesting cases of touching wild animals that come immediately to mind:

A Western rattlesnake slithered over my foot a couple years ago.

I accidentally stepped on a Western rattlesnake, about five years ago.

A black bear bumped me, among other things, a number of years ago.

I woke up with a tarantula on my face, a couple years ago.

I woke up with an opossum standing on my neck, sniffing my face, about ten years ago.
 
I held a baby gator once in Florida. It was in a wading pool. I used t have an 8' Boa Constrictor. A baboon $h1t on my car at Six Flags once :(
 
Touched a Moose in Yellowstone (not a smart thing to do by the way).

Stepped on a Rattlesnake.

See an octopuss, about 10 feet away, yes in the ocean...

Stocked a mule deer and touched him with the end of my bow, about 58inches
 
:rolleyes: Touching wild animals?
baby harbor seal during a rescue.
Grebe during a rescue
A giraffe's tongue wrapped around my hand, stripping it of a carrot.
No wait, no fair, that was at the zoo...*wild* critters
Leopard shark with a paddle
Big jelly fish with a paddle
Stepped on a banana slug once in my bare feet:barf:
 
in controlled situations, I was camping with my parents a loooong time ago, at some well known place out west, and there were buffalo roaming about. I touched one on the nose.

By accident:
upon a loused up insertion on a mission in iraq, we bailed from the vehicle, and all ran over this little stream, and ducked behind the tall reeds, for about 5 minutes of slls (stop look listen and smell) and to collect our wits. when i was sittin down, a rattlesnake rattled its tail directly behind my rucksack in the stream. i was like fuck me... all this bullshit i survive, only to get taken out by a dam snake... it passed thank god lol.

and in germany, back in 94, i was in a foxhole pullin security, and directly in front of me was very thick brush. well I heard a weird sound. sounded like a monster to me in there. it flew by me while still in the brush. i barely seen it, but it was too close for comfort. a wild boar. i was like 'woah' that was close.
 
I didn't even have time for shock or fear. I just instinctively brushed it off. Then I examined it, marveling in surprise that I'd find one that high up (about 11,000 feet). Then, sadly, during this moment of experiencing nature at its fullest, I recalled the episode of The Brady Bunch in Hawaii, where a Tarantula crawls on Greg.

Then I zipped up the mosquito netting on my bivvy sack, and went back to sleep.
 
7 ft. Gator @ about 10 feet, FL panther @ about 50 feet, bobcat @ 3 feet.

Since I always carry a cheap little digital camera in my shirt pocket when I'm out I even got photos of most of my encounters.

Last year there was a 6 ft. diamondback rattler sitting in my driveway right when I pulled in on the motorbike. This time I didn't have the camera with me. I ran around the house, went into the back door, got the camera, but by the time I came back out it was gone.
 
Ive been pretty close to some animals.
snake- touched them
moose- 6 feet
bear- 15 feet
mink- 2 feet
rabbit- 5 feet
And ive grabbed fish well snorkeling.
 
ive caught cotton mouths and other snakes with my bare hands and a stick . im married a have a 16 month old . dont catch snakes anymore . the most memorable encounter i ever had was with a pack of boar in north georgia . about 7 of em at 10 feet away . long story short , i pitched big fit and used the dreaded f-word , said bad things about their momas and hit one in the head with a rock , pulled my gun and they all ran . except for the one i nailed , ran off with a port list .
 
Gray whales 20 yards in boat and kayak, orcas 20 yards in 14' boat, seals 2 yards , black bears 10 yards, mule deer 10 yards, owls have attacked me , 4 yards from bald eagles both times a surprise to both of us damn that was a shock to the system when a rush of air goes by you, oh yeah have picked up rattlesnakes, saw a scorpion in Southern Alberta... yes they are there. Once in the winter a porcupine waddled up to me and huddled between my feet - I swear it was lonely, poor thing.

A huge painted turtle, the shell was about 28" long it must have been a freak of nature and maybe very old , it would pay the dock a visit at dusk to check out if any caught fish were left around the dock, we thought it was a snapping turtle it was so big. We kids left it alone and considered it big medicine. This was around Perth Ontario.

The scariest was a human female with a bad case of PMS... nothing worse than that let me tell you.

Plenty of stories to tell of other non-human wildlife. Life is good.
 
Twenty years ago I was on vacation in the Grenadines. I decided it would be nice to have a souvenier of the trip. I wanted a large conch shell and I wanted to get it from the ocean myself. I went out in a small boat one day and spotted one in about 20' of crystal caribbean water and free dove to get it. I grabbed it from the bottom and stood there for a moment admiring my find.
I stood on the bottom for a moment and was just about to kick off and head to the surface when I looked up.
Swimming above me was a school of barracuda, there were lot's of them, maybe dozens, how many I don't know,but underwater everything looks bigger and those fish and their teeth..man!

I swear they looked at me as a unit,turned back to their course and swam off.
I do believe that I broke all known freestyle swimming records back to the boat that day.
I am looking at that shell right now sitting on the shelf next to my books.

Not my day.
 
My first year in Liberia, Africa, we killed 2 small cobras (not kings, but poisonous)...one in the house and one on the front walkway. The guys out in the field kill snakes often around their accomodations.
 
It was a small tourist attraction in Panama City. I was there with my wife and another friend, and we were in a group of maybe a dozen folks being given the standard issue guided tour of the various animals there in all sorts of enclosures. I really admired this big male leopard, though! I hung back to the rear of the group, let them get further ahead of me, then when they rounded a corner and were out of sight I went back to see the cat. Now, I know this is going to sound really stupid to some of you, but the cat and I looked each other in the eye and I could sense that he was lonely and meant me no harm. I slowly stepped over a low fence, then slowly went over to his cage. We sort of visited some more while I talked to him, and then I let him sniff the back of my hand between the bars of his cage. I thought, "Well, OK so far..." and I gingerly put more of my hand into his cage so I could pet his big head. Darned if he didn't just love for me to scratch his head! He seemed deserate for some attention, so I rubbed his head and his nose, and tugged gently on his ears, felt his whiskers, and rubbed under his chin. This cat was caged, but he was not at all what you would call tame, yet he was starved for affection. I really hated to leave him there, but obviously there was no choice. He was a big, fine, handsome animal.
 
I too once ran across a turtle sunning itself, nearly a foot and a half across and maybe 2 feet neck to tail hole. it was in the middle of avery busy county road. how it managed not to ge smeared as cars roared by was amazing. I was on my old 900 honda and stopped and looked around and found an old fan belt in the ditch, it was a serpentine belt about 5 feet long, I waited for a break in traffic and then slapped the turtle on the snout? with a loop of the belt and on the second attempt it grabbed the belt hard. i simply pulled the darn thing to the weeks, it must have weighed 40 pounds. As i dropped the fan belt and started to the bike, I was amazed at the speed with which that monster scuttled after me and lunged, just missing my sneaker shod foot. He was not thankful that i had saved its life. About a week later i took the same route home and saw him or its twin sunning itself on a log in a little slough beside the road.

My brother was snorkeling when we were kids in a lake in Wisconsin and had a hand gig, or spear, (it was probably against regs, but he was maybe 8 or 9) and all of a sudden he comes splashing and screaming toward the dock, I guess he was following some sunny or crappie and just when he went to stick the gig in it, a snapper just sorta popped up and ate it, I do believe my brother polluted the lake right then. He kept saying it was as big as a man hole cover, and we all just laughed. That night, my dad was sitting on the dock with a coleman lantern and had a sucker minnow on a bobber out hoping for a muskie when he looked down in the water and saw the same turtle, My dad just about squealed too he said. It was nearly 3 feet long my dad said. I am not sure what he used for reference but Dad was not a drinking man nor prone to exaggeration. He decided we should not longer swim off the dock anymore. He did quit teasing my brother about the turtle that ate the crappie whole.
 
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