I was going to post this in the escaped tiger thread but decided that it merited a thread of its own.
When I was ten years old I attended a summer program at the Los Angeles Zoo, don’t remember much about it except we would spend the day looking at certain animal exhibits and then get quizzed about it. On the final day, our class was walking past the primate exhibits when one of the teachers noticed a large, adult female orangutan (named “Sally”) had escaped her enclosure and was wandering around the pedestrian walkway. Naturally, the adults decided this was a golden opportunity to observe a large animal up close and personal, so they led us kids down the path to get a closer look.
We came within ten feet of the giant orange ape, who at first was just sitting there chewing leaves & looking confused. All of a sudden, “Sally” began walking towards our group – and before anyone could react, she reached out one long hairy arm and latched right onto my leg.
It was pretty terrifying. What I remember most vividly are the TEETH, which were very long and pointy and chewing on my leg! (Well, “nibble” is a more accurate term, since they didn’t break the skin.) All the other kids scattered, while one teacher held on to me and another distracted “Sally” with an umbrella. The orangutan finally released me when she decided the umbrella was more interesting, and practically broke the teacher’s finger in the process when she ripped it out of her hand. (She opened it, too.)
What’s really mysterious is why Sally chose me over all the other kids, because I was pretty far back in the group – maybe she could sense that I was an animal-lover, or maybe she was attracted by my extremely loud green-and-yellow plaid pants (what can I say, it was the 70’s.) Luckily, I only sustained some minor bruises which cleared up after a few days; plus a lice infestation a few months later which almost certainly came from her. My family never bothered to sue the zoo, however. Stupid forgiving Christians. :mad:
So…what’s the largest wild animal that ever attacked you?
When I was in Kindergarten in 1970-COUGH! We were taking a nature walk in the woods. The teacher had a long rope with knots tied every 2 feet, our job as kids was to hold onto our knots and not let go. No problem.
We started walking in a large hay field next to Farmer Browns various corrals when we heard a large thump and then heard loud trotting coming towards us. Before we knew it the farmer’s largest Ram [big horned sheep] was barreling at us full speed. He had broken his enclosure and ran right at us.
We scattered and he came right at me, I turned and ran but it was too late, he nailed me in the back with his horns and I went down. He really only clipped my shoulder blade but it hurt and I cried. I was lucky, because he was’t running after any one kid he was just getting as far away from his enclosure as he could.
Well the drama didn’t end there. We all scrambled across the street to our school which was part of a church, and the Ram saw is doing this and decided to follow us after a while. After we all got into the school he started hitting the door with his head. It scared us a lot, but the farmer came over reletively quickly and grabbed him and brought him back to his area…
That was the biggest wild animal to attack me, and it wasn’t even wild.
I’ve been chased by a Brahman cow and although technically not a wild animal, she was pretty crazed. They look so cute and passive, but they’re not.
For actual wild animals, I’ve been dive-bombed by blue jays, bitten by a few squirrels - but I was handling them because they were injured or babies so no actual attackage occured. I’ve also had a red-shouldered hawk land on my shoulder for a few seconds and dig in its talons, a kestrel pounce on my hand, a tri-color heron spear me above the eye and I’ve been chased by a booby.
I’ve told this one before, but it’s one of my best stories so here it comes again:
We were living in Los Angeles in the early 80’s and my parents decided to rent a cabin in the Sequoia National Forest for a week. I was 4 or 5 and was really enjoying the tree you could drive through and walking around picking up seriously giant pine cones and what not. We did some fishing and some hiking and all in all it was a pretty good time. Except for the bears.
These weren’t really impressive bears, just small black bears but the cave or wherever they stayed was right near the cabin that we had. Every night around dusk they’d come out strolling around and my parents in their infinite wisdom would sit on the porch of the cabin and watch them because my parents are insane. Being far smarter than my parents, every evening when the bears came out I’d high tail it for the inside of the cabin. Which had no lights inside and my dad wouldn’t let me have the lantern either. No problem really, I’ll take whatever might be in the dark over what I know is outside waiting to maul me down into Kid McNuggets. My parents would try to lure me back outside with promises of treats and what not, but I wouldn’t budge. Fuck that, you people are seriously nuts.
Finally on the last day, while my mother had my younger brother at the communal showers my dad lured me outside during “bear time” with the promise of something that must have been irresistible. So I and another of my younger brothers came out to sit on the porch with dad. And his camera. His camera that he decided would be a wonderful thing to use to take a picture of a bear that ambled up close to the porch. A flash picture of the bear. A flash picture of the bear that the bear, this being the 80’s and all, decided to have a Sean Penn reaction to.
I remember the bear standing up on it’s hind legs and positively ROARING with all the gusto that a small black bear can muster, which was more than enough.
The porch had a small table and chair set on it which had a floor length table cloth on it, which I chose to dive underneath to safety. Too bad the bear caught that move and stuck it’s head underneath the table cloth and roared again, not 5 inches from my face. He was reaching in with a paw when my dad grabbed me by the back of the collar and pulled me out. The claw caught my shoe and pulled it off. My dad is a big man, and not in the Dolph Lundgren sense. He managed to throw both me and my brother through an open window and then dove through the window himself. Now keep in mind that this window was probably more than chest height and that my dad in those days was probably weighing in around 300lbs. Of course he managed to land on my brother, but we were all alright. The bear started ramming the door of the cabin but lost interest after a few minutes.
As soon as my mom as back from the showers we packed up and left. Not exactly a fatal attack, but more than enough for me.
Jesus! Were these the world’s stupidest adults?!? Orangutans are incredibly strong- you could have been seriously injured or killed. At the San Diego Zoo, they used to display an inch-thick piece of safety-coated glass? plexiglass? that used to be in front of the orang enclosure, until one of them threw something at it and shattered it.
Once when I was in girl scout camp we had gone horseback riding. We got back to the barn or stable or whatever it was that we started at and I started to climb off my horse. I put a foot in the stirrup like they had showed us before we started our horseback riding adventure when the saddle slid upside down under the horse. Apparently he had taken a big breath before they put the saddle on him and it was just loose enough to be dangerous. I fell underneath the horse who reared up above me. I remember looking up at this huge animal and watching his hooves come towards me. I rolled out from beneath the horse and watched as he stomped up and down where my head had been mere moments before. I still don’t like horses to this day because of my horse related near death experience. That wasn’t really a wild animal though.
In a truly wild animal story, my uncle’s brother in law (my aunt’s husband’s sister’s husband) was killed by a bear in Alaska. He had gone hunting with a friend when they were approached by a bear. The way the story was told to me was that the bear became agressive and they took off running in opposite directions in hopes of confusing it but it just picked one of the men, chased him down and mauled him to death.
Would it cheer you up if I told you that people have been killed by rams? I remember one case where a hiker was found dead in a ditch in Devon - they worked out that he had been scrambling underneath a hedge when the ram hit him and smashed his ribcage in. The lung punctures killed him before he managed to make it to the nearest house.
I was 4 when my grandparents took me to the Indianapolis Zoo. Way back then (1969?) the animals weren’t treated very well.
They had an adult male lion in an elevated cage out on the sidewalk. Looked just like those boxes animal crackers used to come in, with widely spaced metal bars and brightly painted wooden trim. No plexiglass. A rope kept viewers out of arm’s (and paw’s) reach.
I stood there and roared at that lion as he paced in circles. As loud as I could!
I’d seen Tarzan on TV, I wanted a roar. A real lion’s roar! The adults around me chuckled, I was a small kid. “Little girl, standing there roaring, isn’t that cute!”
The lion was not charmed.
After a couple of minutes he turned and shot a spray of urine right into my mouth. That lion had excellent aim.
I learned two things – 1. don’t harass animals. And 2. pee is warm.
How horrible! But it does make me wonder if that was the origin of the joke about one not having to be fast enough to outrun the bear they just have to be fast enough to outrun the other guy trying to run away from the bear.
Everyone with their elephants and bears are making my booby look tiny. It was a big booby!
I came in to second that. When I worked at a zoo, one of our biggest problems were adults who just couldn’t accept the fact that these were wild animals, not pets for little Timmy to fondle. You’d catch them trying to hold their little tyke over the tigers’ retaining wall, for chrissakes. It was no exaggeration to say that the enclosures were to protect the animals as much as to protect the patrons.
Several years ago at the Toronto Zoo, some asshat threw something in the orangutan enclosure. The curious apes got into a brawl over it and one of the teenage orangs ended up getting knocked into their moat. Orangutans can’t swim. A patron and zookeeper leapt into the water, but it was too late. The zoo lost a critter that’s an endangered species, and the other orangutans were so depressed at losing a child that they all had to be medicated.
The closest I ever came was sleepily stepping out of our camper one morning (around age nine or so) and finding a bear nosing around the campsite. I figured going back to bed for awhile was the best option.
However, a friend who lives in Florida was attacked rather viciously by a bobcat. I loving hearing him recount the story of The Bobcat That Just Wouldn’t Fucking Die.
I’ve been bitten by a horse named Aunt Bea and a duck that hissed at me first. I have scars from both. At work a sheep has kicked me in the shins many times, a pig has gnawed on my hand a little and a sheep licked the spoon I intended to eat my yogurt with. I was also spit on by a llama named Bud.
Once, a dog bit my face off, you may have seen the picture.
Once at the petting zoo a goat knocked me over and ate the buttons off my coat. My dad just laughed really hard.