Closest encounters with wildlife?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Had an elephant emerge from the forest about 30 feet away while walking along a road in Gabon. I and my Gabonese assistant dove into the bushes and hid until it went away.

Had a silverback male gorilla grunting and beating its chest also about 30 feet away in Gabon, but the bushes were so thick we couldn’t see it. Fortunately it decided not to charge.

Also in Gabon, I woke up one morning to find leopard tracks about 10 feet from my tent.

In Kenya once we went to bed in our tents only to have a battle royal break out about 200 feet away between a pride of lions and a pack of hyenas. Didn’t get a lot of sleep that night.

I’ve had a jaguar circle our tent grunting about 20 feet away at night in Panama. We found its tracks the next morning.

22

I have a couple of cool ones.

About 1979, I was out horseback riding alone in the woods owned by the stable I boarded my horse at. There were tons of deer in that woods, and I heard some crashing thru the brush coming toward me. I thought… deer! But no, a rabbit dashed out, across the trail no more than 15 feet in front of me. I was momentarily disappointed, but there was more crashing, and a bobcat came out of the trees and came to a screeching halt on the trail right in front of us. He glared at me, my horse was quivering like crazy. The bobcat flipped his tail in aggitation and stalked off, clearly pissed that I had cost him his dinner!

A couple years later, same horse. My cousin and I were out riding on a nearly deserted country road. A young doe came wandering out of the woods right next to us! We stopped the horses and went silent, and the doe walked almost right up to the horses, sniffing them. We began walking them down the road again, and the deer followed us for about a quarter of a mile or so. Very, very cool!

Lastly, a friend and I had driven down to Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky, and there was a string of traffic stopped, going around something in the road very slowly. When it came our turn to pass it, ‘it’ turned out to be a tiny baby fawn, no more than a day old! it had fallen on the pavement and couldn’t get its legs under it. No idea what else to do with it-everyone else had driven off, I picked it up. OMG I wanted to bring it home! It was so tiny and adorable! It started bleating loudly, and from the other side of the road came a snorted answer-Mama Deer stuck her head out nervously. I carried the fawn safely off the road and sat it down, where it bunded off to join Mama. One of my sweetest memories!

23

Riding my bike on the path along the Charles River near downtown Boston, out of the corner of my eye I saw a falcon gliding parallel to me about ten feet away. It was descending toward some ducks in the water, but they got away.

Saw a bobcat from about fifty feet in Yosemite. It was in a well traveled area near the hotel, so I’m guessing it had had some regular exposure to humans.

Seen lots of deer. Followed one for about a half mile on my bike once; it was running along next to the street on the way into my neighborhood. The one that stands out was a couple years ago at Grand Canyon. I was on my way out of the park on the north side at about 1:00 a.m. It was pitch black and I was bone tired. Not that they were close, but there were so many of them. It was about 30 miles, and I probably saw more than a hundred deer just within the range I could see with the headlights. Really, really didn’t want to fall asleep and hit one.

24

Moose: Drove down Emigration Canyon road just a few miles from downtown Salt Lake City at ~3am on a moonless night in the early spring (no snow on the ground, but still cold at night). Coming around a corner I managed to stop about 20 feet in front of a enormous cow standing on her spindle legs in the middle of the two lane road. She stayed in my headlights for about 4 minutes before laconically wandering off to the side.

Cougar: Hiking in the Glacier Peak Wilderness in North Central Washington with two other folks in about mid-June, we came around a bend in the trail that opened into a large rock field - boulders the size of cars. After taking about 8-10 steps into the sunny open area, we heard an odd squeal/squawk. Assuming it was a weird marmot call, we kept walking…for about three more steps when I saw a cougar sprawled across the top of a boulder about 80 feet ahead enjoying the mid-morning sun. A decent breeze was in our face and the sun was behind us - and the animal was a good five feet off the ground…but I still have no idea if it knew we were there and just chose to ignore us or what. As we slowly retreated, we heard (and saw movement) that suggested the cougar had a pair of kittens (or perhaps we imagined that part)

Bear #1: (Also in Washington State - North Cascades). Standing near a power pole at the edge of a small mountain town enjying the view, a black bear cub came charging out of the undergrowth, jumped on the pole, and climbed about 4-5 feet off the ground - I was less than twenty feet away. It finally noticed me about 20 seconds later, made a surprised little “woof!”, jumped off the pole, and ran off into the brush. I had a cheap disposable camera in-hand and got a couple of quick shots off - without those I would have thought I dreamed the whole thing up.

Bear #2: While trail running on a Forest Service logging road (North Cascases again), I was in the zone and not paying enough attention. I ran around a turn…and right between a sow feeding on one side of the road and her two cubs just a few feet in the short brush on the other. The sow alerted me to my dumbass mistake with a loud bark about 20 feet to my left - scared the living piss out of me, but my legs had a mind of their own and just kept going down the gravel/dirt road without breaking stride (though my head swiveled left-to-right so fast I have no idea how I kept my feet). When I finally pulled-up I was about 300 yards down the road on a straightaway. About two minutes later I heard the cubs start arguing about something, the sow cross the road to break it up, and they moved away noisely down the hill (and, thankfully, away from me).

I spent the next twenty minutes sitting on the side of the road twitching and trembling - an encounter that could have ended much less well.

Random encounters: Many, many close encounters (some unlucky, some stupid) with snakes - venomous &/or constrictors) on several continents. Had a water buffalo step on my tent (and almost my head) in a beach wind storm. Various nasty jellyfish interactions while diving. Some big cat with a throaty cough did laps around my “cabin” in Panama one night (local folks said it was a jaguar, but a cougar seemed more likely) for what felt like an eternity.

(Re-reading the above, I’m surprised I’ve made it this far without, um, being food. Urk.)

25

I was at Starbucks today when a dirty hippie walked pass me, does that count?

26

Probably technically counts as “feral” rather than “wild”…so…no. :wink:

27

I was at Yellowstone park on a field trip with my middle school. We’d stopped at a rest area for lunch and there was a large crowd over yonder way. We went to investigate, and there was a pair of bison standing in a big open clearing. Like idiots, the crowd started to completely surround it so they could get a look at it. My mom and other chaperones started shooing people away, because once a 2000 lb animal decides it doesn’t like being gawked at from all sides it rushes, tramples and gores people.

The crowd dispersed and the bison decided to go that way. Unfortunately, that way was near ME. They walked on by, probably 30 feet away with nary a care in the world and off to the woods.
A few weeks ago I almost ran over a flock of Canadian geese. They must have been stoned or something because they felt walking across a 5 lane road was way easier than flying over it, or something.

28

I have been less.then five feet away from the following; Humpbacks, sperm whales,fin whales, orcas and belugas numerous porpus seals, dolfins, otters, fur seals and sea lions. And about ten feet from a cougar.

A porcupine brushed up against me the other week when i was quietly sitting outside. Scared the crap out of us.both. A momma moose and her two calvs hurdeld me my first year up here. I was laying in my bivi sack mear a road and they got startled and ran right to were i was napping. I was sleaping on a beach amd a snow owl landed on a piece of drift wood right next to me. I am probally most impressed with thar one as ot os the only one i have ever seen.

29

Rattlesnake. One of the Audubon society members almost sat on one so I ran up and due to my viking ancestry which meant I had an instinct to kill serpents…

whipped out my camera and recorded it for all posterity.

30

Oh yea. Bears.

31

Given a lot of time spent in the woods in both the Appalachians and Rockies, I’ve only ever seen a bear one time, crossing a road a few hundred feet ahead of my car, about ten minutes from my parents’ place. Deer, thousands over the years but never closer (on foot) than about 20 feet, except for the two or three times I’ve almost but not quite hit deer with cars. Moose, ended up following one in a pickup for about five miles on a snowy mountain road in Wyoming, at moose walking pace; couldn’t get around it and it wasn’t in any hurry to get anywhere.

Great stories, though, folks.

32

nose-to-facemask with a reef shark, a barracuda, and the biggest moray eel i’ve ever seen. all were mildly curious and unaggressive. i made very sure i was unaggressive, too. :smiley:

oh yeah, literally walked into a baby bear rooting in the trashcans while i was on vacation up in canada as a kid. the grandparents had us exit hastily stage right, knowing mama prolly wasn’t very far away.

33

10-15 ft from minke whales on the Great Barrier Reef.

I kicked a shark once (I didn’t see it). It backflipped around towards me but my dive buddy charged it and it swam away. It was a wobbegong; I don’t know if it would have bitten me or not.

34

I once walked up on a deer; she jumped up and ran when I was close enough to touch her, although I didn’t make the attempt. I think she must have had a fawn nearby or I would never have been allowed to get that close; I couldn’t find the fawn, however.

A rattlesnake once warned me not to take another step and I didn’t until I was able to pick it out from the grass it was coiled up in. I actually don’t think I was within striking distance but I did learn that what a lot of people say is true: I knew exactly what it was as soon as I heard it rattle in spite of having never before heard one in my life----instinct, maybe?

I once walked up to a buffalo (bison) in South Dakota. I was actually within an arm’s length of that thing before I knew it was there. The thing I noticed and have never forgotten was the absolute absence of any expression in its eye. I was completely insignificant to that animal; it was large enough to stomp me into oblivion but it totally ignored me even as I was backing away.I’ve seldom felt more helpless than on that occasion.

35

I wish I had digital copies online somewhere but without question the most prolific and diverse group of wildlife I’ve ever encounterd was during an 8 day drive from Dallas to Anchorage, most memorably the stretch through British Columbia and the Yukon. I have the pics in a scrapbook at home and it’s mindblowing how close most of these were taken from.

I saw a black bear grazing by the roadside, pulled over, saw her two cubs and her circling around as if to sneak up to me. A half dozen Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep in a roadcut were no more than a few yards away. A grizzly bear was snoozing just off the road on a deserted part of the AlCan, maybe 20 yards away. A bull, cow and calf moose were foraging and I got way, way too close on foot. In hindsight that was extremely dangerous. A porcupine, a Dall Sheep, all these mentioned were withing a day or two of each other.

Further up in Alaska just south of Prudhoe, I laid on the tundra among a herd of Musk Ox for at least an hour, marveling at their stunning beauty. It was remarkable watching their herding instincts, how the main bull would joust with younger ones, etc. I’ve fantastic video footage of that.

In Kuparuk I sat on a frost heave of dirt that was home to a family of Arctic Fox one warm summer day while reading a book. About 6 or 7 kits played mere feet from me, curious but scrambling back into their den whenever I’d move to stretch.

I’ve had a mountain lion run right in front of me near Eagles Nest and a big Lynx up in the Yukon cross nearby in a snowstorm. Bison in Yellowstone. Countless caribou on the North Slope. Badger in Nevada.

Belugas off Beluga Point, killer whales in Turnagin Arm, giant Manta Rays in Jamaica, caught a striped Marlin, near a few sharks on various trips.

Lots of snake close encounters, from rattlers and water mocassins to coral snakes and coachwhips/racers.

I had a Wolverine veer off from chasing a wounded caribou and come investigate me on the North Slope. I finally had to scare him off with an overhead 12 ga. blast.

36

When we were on safarin in Kenya, a lion used our van for cover as it stalked prey. It was one of those open top vans so I could lean out the top and look it in the eye. In Indonesia, we went to a park that rehabilitates orangutans that were raised in captivity. One came within 2 feet of me, but it doesn’t really count since it was domesticated and the park is trying to teach it to be wild again.

37

We get Black Bear, Moose, Deer and just about every other Rocky Mountain critter in our yard pretty often. I see Bear every year. Moose are becoming more common. There have been three that I have seen this year. Mostly because the dogs go to DEFCON 1 when they see them. I had moose use my car as a salt lick (road salt collects on it and they lick it off, makes a real mess).

I keep trash in the shed and the Bears have tried to break in a few times. In fact I should replace the door again before winter. They have become quite fearless and are hard to scare off without firing a gun (never of course shoot them, just in their general direction).

Wife and I have encountered sharks diving in Caribbean. Blues I think. Makes for a long decompression stop I must say.

Here’s Bullwinkle

And his brother

38

I am no hunter nor outdoorsman; I prefer hot and cold running water, a well-stocked bar, and cable TV when I relax (though I do like to go fishing, both fresh and salt water). I’ve had close encounters with raccoons, chipmunks, sea otters, wild turkey, and deer (we were both surprised) but my most memorable was actually viewing an ocean sunfish while fishing off the coast of Fort Lauderdale back in my pre-teen days, just before the boom. It could not have been more than 1-2 meters from the boat. At that time, and never since, we also encountered a school of porpoise fairly close to shore, but they were quite a distance.

Thinking about my trips to Florida, I also have encountered, at a safe distance, alligators, and when boating in the intercoastal waterway, manatee. But all of this was decades ago. Raccoons, even here in the wilds of Queens, NY, are a very common sight.

39

As a preteen I came very close to a copperhead while we were both hunting frogs. I’ve since released a non-venomous rat snake into the wild. Once a beaver swam directly underneath a canoe I was paddling – beavers are intimidatingly large when viewed up close!

Three or four times this year, while walking our dogs, we’ve been challenged and even followed by foxes. It’s hard to imagine that a fox really intends to attack two adult humans and two pit bulls, so my thinking is the fox is perfectly well aware the dogs are leashed and controlled, and is just showing off or having fun.

40

I’ve been within about 50 feet of a bear while hiking in the back country. Just followed the bear encounter protocol and moved on.

Lots of close encounters with big horn sheep, moose and deer, as well as coyotes (especially when walking the dogs), local snakes.

Various fish and sharks while diving in South America.

On a recent trip to Banff, we opened our patio curtains first thing in the morning and found a family of deer, including this little guy. We didn’t touch, didn’t feed, and tried to ignore, but they were really interested in us. I’m betting tourists to that area are always feeding the deer. :frowning: