My car was attacked while traveling 60 MPH, by a bird big enough to blot out the entire windshield. I believe it was some sort of vulture.
Not an attack…When I was 6, I went out to get the evening paper in the dark. There was a baby bear sitting on top of the paper box. It was dark enough that I didn’t see it until I touched it. We both squealed, I’m not sure which of us ran faster.
Not an attack exactly. When my husband was a teenager, his family went on vacation without him, leaving the the house in his care.
One day, he lured a squirrel inside. It freaked out, running horizontally around the walls pooing and screeching the whole time.
Young hubby took the better part of valor and left (he left the doors and windows open.) He learned how to clean squirrel shit, spackle and paint that summer. His folks never knew, that is, until I inadvertently told them. (I didn’t know they didn’t know!! I really didn’t!)
He’s still afraid of squirrels.
Oh, I’ve mentioned that one a few times at the Dope.
Here’s a post from 2002 where I tried to detail everything that has ever bitten me ( missed a few and I had forgotten about the Puli for this thread, who bulks larger than that nasty poodle ). Included is a brief account of the eye biting incident:
Some missing relevant detail - I was showing him off to a visiting friend. While holding him I noticed he was just about to shed and realized that that already ill-tempered critter was probably not a good candidate to be holding just then. So I leaned over his cage and started slightly rearranging his flower pot home with my left hand, prepatory to reintroducing him to it. Meanwhile I was holding the snake curled up in my right hand, at about eye level. Bad mistake. He just lashed out and tagged me as I was straightening back up.
Same here, tho in my case I was trying to rescue the poor thing, which was looking a bit frostbitten after a record cold night-and couldn’t fly either. After a few snaps at me (I don’t want to imagine how painful their bite would be-the upper bill has a nasty “spike” on the tip for catching fish with) I managed to toss a blanket over it and drive it over to the wild bird rehab center.
To top that off the rehab center had a crazy turkey named Beethoven who would chase you around and try to nip you in the butt if you have him a chance.
Also visited a gannet colony (close pelican relative), and they were generally mellow, until you got within X feet of their nest, then they would start walking towards you with their bills sticking straight up in the air-and peering at you from around their bill (as they have evolved downward looking eyes to scan the water below for fish). But I backed off and they then ignored me.
The largest would probably be that evil-eyed ostrich at the Louisville Zoo. It snapped at my elbow as I stood by the railing of its enclosure and would have gotten me if I hadn’t been stepping away at that moment.
Somewhat smaller was the raging groundhog that my mother and I encountered on a hike in central Kentucky. It was on one side of a small creek and we were on the other; it was dashing about manically as if quite upset by our presence but did not try to cross the creek. We quickly decided to leave, fearing it might be rabid (groundhogs do sometimes catch rabies.)
Then there was a small antelope that tried to pants me at a petting zoo in the middle of a shopping mall. I never went into a petting zoo again.
I’ve been bitten by many pelicans, I didn’t count them as attacks because it was a side effect of feeding them. Walking into a pen full of hungry pelicans with a bucket of fish can be a little scary. The sides of their bills are sharp and will slice like a razor, they wouldn’t slice deeply but it was like a long paper cut. I think I got hit by the tooth like spike on the end of the bill once, it wasn’t as bad as all the paper cuts.
I developed better reflexes from feeding pelicans.
A goat tried to eat my shirt at a petting zoo when I was 5 or 6. To be fair, it was a baby goat and a green shirt so it may have been confused.
I used to catch lizards on the woodpile while they were brown and hold them until they turned green again. The last time I did that I was 12, and the quarry took hold of the end of my index finger and would not let go! I ran across the street where my parents were, screaming at the top of my lungs that it was killing me. A little bitty 6 inch long lizard on the end of my finger. I may have been a little overdramatic at that age.
I once narrowly escaped being chomped on by a snapping turtle. A really big one with a shell about a foot and a half long.
And geese. I’ve been chased by a flock of wild geese when I got too close to a nest.
How I discovered that my imitation of a cow elk wasn’t bad:
I had a bull elk lower his head to peer into my car (it was an older Toyota Corolla), stick his muzzle into the open window and bugle. Loudly. Fortunately there was no urination involved.
My wildlife encounters have been pleasant (so far, thanks to the ranger that warned us when we were about to stumble across a grizzly on a kill) but I did get nipped by a fish of some sort when I had the audacity to touch his rock while scuba diving near Cancun.
Other then that dogs though they’re not technically wild and I was stung by a wasp once.
A tiger at London zoo did some severe menacing in my general direction and although there was a fence between us it scared the crap out of me maybe I’m just not a cat person?
Mid 80’s bicycling around the perimeter road at Savanna Army Depot, IL in the evening. Had an old Bell helmet on and this big shadow covered me as I was slightly lifted from my saddle. The owl made one big flap trying to lift my head (helmet?) and sailed off. Never made a sound. I estimated about a 5 foot wingspan. Talon scratches on the helmet. From the force of the tug, I’d still have scars today without the protection.