Share your wildlife close encounters.

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What wildlife have you encountered? Do you see any wild animals on a regular basis? (You can include squirrels, pigeons, whatever -- we have a lot of posters from different countries, so I'm interested in knowing what animals populate your cities.) If you aren't the outdoorsy type, feel free to tell us about the time you saw a giant RAT under your fridge (h., I'm looking at you). Or scary bug stories.

But I'm hoping at least one of you has made a daring escape from a grizzly bear or a crazed warthog or something.

Me, I've never seen anything scarier than a whole shitload of elk surrounding our car. I've seen bears at Yellowstone, but I was little and I don't think I was scared. I've seen raccoons in my backyard and eating all my dog's food at a camp site. I've seen lots of coyotes and skunks. I see owls now and then and they always scare the shit out of me even though I'm not a small rodent.

I've seen bald eagles a few times, although the most notable occasion was when one landed in the rice field next to my parents' house and ate a mudhen. That's not exactly bald eagle stomping ground.

We see squirrels and lots of birds and our cute little gray and white roof rats. We see the occasional possum. In the country you can also see big white cranes and sometimes a blue heron, as well as a lot of birds of prey. Jack rabbits are pretty common where my parents live.

We see deer now and then; our neighbor saw one by the river, within a few miles of our house.

Talk about wildlife!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Answers

Technically, this isn't wildlife, but it's a big predatory animal, so here goes.

I grew up in Orinda, California, in a house on the rim of a heavily- wooded canyon. Our attic ran the length of the house and was open on one end into the garage. The garage's back door was missing. We could climb into the attic by climbing up onto the dryer, then into the attic.

Occasionally one of our cats would go get stuck in the attic; we'd hear them running back and forth overhead. They'd forget how to get out when the garage was dark. One day I heard what I thought was one of our cats, so I went and got a flashlight to show it the way; when I shined the flashlight into the attic I saw a cat, about 4' long from nose to tail tip, and about 1 1/2' tall at the shoulder, pacing back and forth at the far end of the attic. We had an ocelot in our attic!

I called various groups (animal control, humane societ, whatever), and was eventually directed to somebody who lived down in the bottom of the canyon who owned several ocelots which occasionally got out. They came by with a big cage and talked it down.

We got a back door on the garage soon after.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


We have a lot of red-tailed hawks where I live, and I love watching them. They're so graceful and lovely.

We also have vultures. My sister-in-law loves birds of all kinds, and said when she was a kid, she used to lay in her back yard and watch the vultures cirle over her. She's pretty weird, but I love her.

We've got all the usual critters here in North Texas - skunks and raccoons, opossums (of which I am terrified!) and deer.

My absolute favorite animals to watch, though, are the geckos. They climb on the outsides of my windows, and I can watch them playing for hours. They're so sweet looking, and they make me smile.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


Most of the more exciting wildlife I've seen has been during summer vacations to Nova Scotia. We had a bobcat in the driveway once, and I've seen lots of minks and seals. A few times while rowing out toward the mouth of the harbor seals have come to check out the boat up close. We also saw a smallish bear hightail it away from our garbage one night. A whole ruffled grouse family lived in the yard one summer. Porcupines all over the place, too. Porcupines and dogs are a really bad mix; so, although I never felt like *I* was executing a daring escape, spotting porcupines before the dogs did was fairly adrenaline-heavy activity. Porcupines don't seem to fear much of anything, including cars. They turn their backs to approaching cars like they're squaring off to a fair fight.

My most frightening animal escape is really pretty embarrassing: "When Roosters Attack!" I had to climb a tree to get away from that insane bird. I was yelling at it, which of course drew my entire extended farm-dwelling family to come and ridicule me. They didn't seem to understand that he had clearly indicated that he meant to peck out my eyes (or rip them out with his spurs.) He continued to circle the base of the tree for 15 minutes. Man, that rooster wanted to fuck my shit up. I don't care what my so-called chicken-expert relatives said.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


Edmonton has a lot of wildlife in the parks near the river valley and stuff, and every once in a while a deer, elk or moose will wander up into the city and run around on the highways. They panic (well, duh) and they run around all freaky. One deer buck smashed through a plate glass window not so long ago. I never did hear what happened to it!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

I live in the big city (yes, a definitive article. we all know how New York is the King of Kings - ack, don't beat me, it was a joke), and so we don't have much in the way of bears, but I saw something that scared the shit out of me this morning, anyway.

Roachzilla. On the sidewalk, in the middle of Park Avenue. Eating a tourist.

It was big and black and you could see its little antennae wave and everyone who passed by went "EEP!" and sort of did a little hop- skip.

If someone had stepped on it, it would've gone CRUNCH. Yeeewww.

But I'm sure it's hiding in the sewers now, plotting its eminent rise to power in the upcoming Senate election. No, wait, that's Benito Guiliani.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000



I saw a red-tailed hawk here in Philadelphia last year. It was lunching on a pigeon. The feathers were really flying.

Last year, when we were going through drought conditions, I had a deer come up to the front of the condo and eat part of the shrubbery.

In Northern Maine, where I grew up, we had lots of wildlife to enjoy. It wasn't unusual to have a moose wandering around the backyard. If you've never seen one live, it's hard to imagine just how big they are. They are huge. We had foxes, rabbits, raccoons, etc. On the lake, there were loons. There is nothing better, imo, than sitting on the porch on a summer evening, listening to the loons calling.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


I survived a shark encounter.

Rich and I were in south Florida in May of 1994, when none but tourists swim because it's too cold for namby-pamby residents. We were out about a 100 feet, over our heads, and I was looking out to sea and he was just in front of me looking inland. Over his shoulder I saw a fin, a big-ass triangle of dark piercing the surface. Rich saw my face go white as I said, "Oh my god" and turned and began to swim for shore. (I didn't say anything like "Swim honey it's a shark!" I'm not that thoughtful.)

By the time he looked over his shoulder, even more of the fin was showing: more than a foot from wave to tip, almost two feet at the base. Rich flipped and swam himself.

Now, he grew up there and knew there are three reefs parallel to the Delray Beach coast, and when sharks that large come all the way to the inland side, they're ill, old, raving, desperate. He knew what size shark a fin that size indicated. But he was swimming anyway, swimming for his life.

As was I. I am a better swimmer by far than he but not so much faster it would matter to a shark that can cruise at 25 mph--an Olympic sprinter (which I am not) might touch 5 mph. In my head, I heard Chief Brody: "Is it true that most shark attacks happen ten feet off shore, in three feet of water?" and Richard Dreyfuss: "That's a 20-footer," and Robert Shaw: "Twenty-five."

At any moment we expected to feel thousands of pounds psi of shark teeth in our legs, our sides. I knew that few shark attacks are fatal, but I was hardly looking forward to losing a leg or most of my innards. We swam. We would die nobly.

I have known fewer moments of pure unadulterated joy than when my fingers on a downstroke met the sandy bottom. *I* was safe, and I stood up and looked for Rich, and there he was several feet behind me, whole and sound. As he coughed in the wavelets, the adrenaline of fight-or-flight having aggravated his asthma, I ran for the lifeguard.

Who was laughing at me. "It was a ray," he said, and I stared at him, trying to remember a sort of ray with a dorsal fin. He assumed, my pale skin proving me a tourist, that I didn't know dick, and told me a ray is a harmless bottom feeder.

A ray is a flat, kite-shaped fish, and when this individual, which the guard said had a 15-foot wingspan, turned in the water, what we had seen as a fin was a corner of its body. Then Rich beat himself up for not realizing that a dorsal fin is only a shark if there's a tailfin as well. I don't know about that: a big enough dorsal could would show above the water before a tailfin.

This is why "Jaws" is such a favorite movie of mine.

We came within 50 feet of a big ol' grizzly in Glacier NP three years ago. It was eating and unconcerned with us humans as it grazed up the hill. We edged around it, the size of a grand piano, its jaws winnowing yards of serviceberry bushes at a swipe.

This is why I like my position toward the top of the food chain. Of all the fast ways to die, I think to be eaten--shark, gator, lion, whatever--must be among the worst.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


I camped out early on spring in Maine (that's May), and was probably one of the first people to stay on a campsite on Tumbledown Mountain, near Weld. I was cooking a late supper when I heard the tramping feet for the first time. My initial impression was that a party of hikers was looking around for a place to pitch their tent. It didn't take too long to realize that there were no voices and the footsteps were circling my fire. After sitting through a couple of circuits, I decided to shine my light and see what was out there.

It was a fair-size cow black bear. I built up the fire and dragged all of my food to the side of the fire opposite my tent, then considered how likely it was that she would come into my site. I knew that black bear attacks are rare. I wasn't entirely comfortable, though -- maybe she was really hungry, or her cubs were, and she might be pretty used to humans.

Even after I built up the fire and moved the food, she kept circling. and shined my light in the bear's eyes. She finally wandered off after staring into the light for a while. I didn't sleep too well that night, but apparently she never came back, because the food wasn't touched in the morning.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


I'm a backpacker too, and I've had my share of wildlife encounters - bears, moose, even marmots. The one that jumps immediately to mind, though is raccoons. I was camping at a state park as part of a high school class trip, and it was one of these big public campgrounds with lots of people, lots of food, and hence lots of critters happily eating the food and growing fat. The minute the sun went down, we could see the yellow eyes of the raccoons staring at us, eagerly waiting to be fed. We all had colds, so we decided to make it an early night. When we got into our tent, we discovered that the bottom zipper on the door was completely broken, so we shoved our duffels and backpacks up against the crack and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning to the sounds of one of my tentmates laughing hysterically outside. Turned out I had made one serious error - I left my backpack shoved against the door with the zipper side out. The raccoons had nosed through the semi-open tent door, unzipped my backpack, tore open a little stuff sack inside the backpack pocket, where they found - Sudafed! Sealed in foil inside a cardboard box, all of which they ripped to shreds. Seemed like a lot of work for just cold medicine, but hey... They'd eaten an entire package worth - about 48 tablets. Given the dosage/body weight ratio and the fact that it made us humans drowsy, we figured those raccoons would be sleeping off their wild night for quite some time :)

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

We have a pool, and I was out in the pool the day before yesterday, waiting for my husband to join me, and suddenly I looked around and realized I was surrounded by no fewer than 20 wasps and red hornets. They weren't after me, they were after a sip from the pool (I never realized until we got a pool that hornets, wasps and bees drink water; I'm kind of clueless, I guess). Because I'm a spaz, I didn't dare to try to get by them to get out of the pool, so I floated there, splashing like a spaz every time one of them got within 2 feet of me. You see, I'd killed one of their kind earlier that day, and I was sure they were after me for revenge...

As far as true wildlife, I grew up in Maine, and at least once every winter we had a moose run through our back yard. Also, there was once - and may still be - a large pack of wild turkeys who lived in my parents' neighborhood, wandering from yard to yard.

And last but not least, before we put our pool in and put up the fence, we had a skunk who liked to hang out under our back steps and we never knew when he'd come out and go lumbering across the yard to forage for food.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000



I live in the burbs outside of Montreal (oh dear god, how did i become a burb girl?), so i've seen wild rabbits, racoons, and of course in the city or not we see tons of pigeons and seagulls, as well as sparrows and robins.

Up north is more fun. Foxes, wolves, moose, deer. Woo! I have also had an amazing experience while skiing two hours north of Montreal. There's a rest stop halfway up a mountain (err this is cross-country, not downhill skiing) where the gray jays (as the name implies, they look identical to blue jays except that they are gray) have become used to the people. If you put bread crumbs in your hands, or the more popular choice of cheese, and hold your hand flat and up just a bit, they will land on your fingers and eat right out of your hand.

Amazing.

Thank God i have never seen a bear. Nor do i want to.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


When Charmin showed up on my screened porch several years ago in February, I didn't think I needed another cat so I fed him out there and I fixed him a bed in this long box which was open at one end. I used some of the kid's old wooly warm coats to line it with and wrap it with (for insulation). He would go in the box and turn around and then peek out the little opening. One day I was looking for him and peeked in the box and there was a possum peeking back out at me! I do not like possums! That may have been when we decided that Charmin needed a name and a home inside the house. Good decision.....he is a very sweet cat....and yes, squeesably soft.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Well, as I wrote in my diary, I was attacked by a blackbird last week. San Francisco has some tough birds.

When I was growing up in Western Massachusetts, our yard was occasionally populated with rabbits, deer, bears, foxes, porcupines, skunks, and wild turkeys. Once our cat had a standoff with a herd of turkeys while my mother watched through the kitchen window. The turkeys were much bigger than the cat and they outnumbered her by a wide margin. According to my mom, the cat would take a few steps forward, and the turkeys would back up a few steps and then stop. Then the turkeys would take a few steps forward and the cat would back up. This went on for several minutes, and then my mom went outside and chased the turkeys away.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


The ostrich encounters. A few years ago I took a break from my job in Cape Town and went with my partner to holiday in a little village in the Karoo at the foot of the Swartberg mountains. Very peaceful, empty plains all around, orchards of quince and peach trees, water furrows running down either side of the main road. We arrived at the 19th-century cottage, I opened the shutters and saw a young ostrich balancing on one leg on the front verandah. It had curly black plumes of tail feathers, a speckled downy coat and large black eyes with long sweeping eyelashes. To the uninitiated, ostriches are extremely photogenic, kind of the Greto Garbo of non-flying birds.

'Look,' I shouted to my partner. 'A real live ostrich!' She turned from another window and said,'Er ... about 15 and counting.' In a small field adjoining the cottage there were 20 ostriches, fed and cared for (I wouldn't say domesticated) by a local farmer.

We went into the kitchen and a large male ostrich was pecking at the fridge. I know only two facts about ostriches. They can outrun human beings and a blow from their three-toed feet can brain a grown man. It took us two hours to get the ostrich out of the kitchen, advancing with chairs held in front of us and coaxing him with ripe peeled mangoes.

The rest of the holiday was rarely ostrich-free. Ostriches are noisy, smelly and quarrelsome creatures with non-retentive memories and vile habits. They are insatiably curious and stuck their heads through open windows or hammered on the closed window with their beaks. They crapped on the verandah and the smaller ostriches would wriggle under the car parked outside and wedge themselves into immovable positions before screaming blue murder, whereupon the mother ostrich would run around the house in a pantomime of threat that went on most of the night. Ever try prising baby ostriches out from under an automobile? The farmer was deaf to our complaints. 'They're wild animals,' he explained patiently. 'They don't listen to me. Foreign tourists love them. Don't you think they're pretty birds?' When we left, the ostriches ran down the farm road behind our car in a parody of abandonment. The large male ostrich had torn up a copy of a Jeanette Winterson novel I had carelessly left on the kitchen table. I'm still not sure if that implies I misjudged his powers of discrimination.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2000


I was backpacking out in the northwest once (possibly in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness or possibly the Absaroka Beartooth trip) and practically walked smack into an elk. It was just standing in the middle of the trail, looking elk-ish. Elk are really big, but they blend nicely with their surroundings.

Possibly that same trip, we got caught in a huge thunderstorm. Our gear got totally soaked, and we decided to turn around and head back early. As we stepped out onto the trail (a few feet from where we'd set up the tent) we discovered a bunch of very fresh paw prints in the mud. Probably bear, possibly cat. Whoever it was obviously didn't think we smelled interesting enough to taste.

And in one of my former co-op houses, we discovered a possum using the litterbox that we put out for the stray kittens who would occasionally get trapped in our screen porch.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2000



I worked three summers in Yosemite National Park on the night shift at various hotels. I rode my bicycle from my dorm room to work at about 11:00 PM along paved footpaths; darkness didn't prevent me from riding fast. One night a black bear cut across the path in front of me causing me to skid into a tree... I missed hitting him by just a few feet. (the bear was equally startled and fled into the woods)

That was my only close encounter, although bear encounters were a weekly occurence.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000


Right now I'm watching a story on the morning news about a guy who caused terrible traffic jams by bringing a mule onto the Golden Gate Bridge earlier this morning.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

When I was 10 or 11 I stepped on a snake in my kitchen. To this day I have no idea how that thing got inside the house. It was a HUGE BLACK SNAKE (I am sure it was only a couple of feet long, but to me it was a giant Anaconda with fangs the size of bananas and it was looking for a little girl to snack on) I guess I scared the snake as much as it scared me because it slithered under the refrigerator. My parents didn't believe me until the dog went nuts and started attacking the 'fridge. My dad asked one of the neighbors to help move the fridge and 'lo and behold there was an big, black, angry snake. I never knew two grown men could fit on one kitchen counter. I still get the heebie-jeebies when I step on something in the dark.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

The closest I've probably ever gotten to a wild animal was nearly stepping on a huge butterly that plopped itself down right underneath my shoe as I was about to step down. YIKES! I refuse to go in "Butterly World" at Marine World now...

My ex-boyfriend has a house in the country, and has found the following in it:

* Hand-sized spider ("hey, Jen, come look at this!" "Hell no!")

* Frog

* Two large poisonous snakes

Likewise, I went to his parents' house on a mountain one weekend, and they have deer hanging out right in front of their window. Too cool. Sure beats going on boating trips and watching deer (and birds) take craps from across the river.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000


Just now, on my way home from dinner, I saw two frogs hanging out on the sidewalk. very silent. hopping forward towards the curb a little. I hope they aren't trying to cross the street, because they are stone- colored and small, and it's night.

When I was home in Arlington, MA., I got off the last bus at 1am and started walking down the street to go home. It was ompletely quiet, on a wide street that's fairly busy in the day. Anyway I heard this long moaning growling sound. I stopped. It was coming from across the street. Another moaning growl. very creepy. All of a sudden a huge raccoon (okay maybe 2.5 feet long and kinda burly and wide) came out from behind a house, quickly followed by a second one. They lolloped along the sidewalk and down the street, the second one cursing outr the first one, apparently, and describing what he would do if he caught him (or her). It was a little unnerving for my city kid self.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000


Trouble, have you ever heard of the Davis Toad Tunnel?

Our wacky City Councilwoman and later mayor thought the same as you about a freeway in the back end of town and somehow convinced people to build a tunnel for the toads under it. The whole story ended up on Comedy Central, where they put a 24-hour camera on the tunnel to prove no frogs used it (for the record, I've never even seen a toad in Davis, much less this area, and they don't exactly have it blocked off now so that toads will not be able to use the street either). After having this proven to her, she said something about how the toads psychially benefited from the caring.

This later spawned a children's book and a small "Toad Hollow" town next to the tunnel, which has recently fallen on hard times- it got TP'd and then stolen a few days later.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000


Regarding the "toad tunnel"--

The town where I grew up built a salamander tunnel for the same purpose about 15 years ago, and it was also met with much derision. But, the salamanders actually do seem to use it, and it didn't get widespread media attention.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000


The school where I work is smack dab in the middle of Toronto, but has a mini eco-system of a creek ravine and forest surrounding the grounds. It's quite the sanctuary.

Yesterday morning I arrived late to work, thanks to an accident on the street I have to drive along to get here. As I got of my car in our parking lot, I glanced down the slope of the grounds towards the forest. I froze.

Standing at the edge of the trees, out in open, no more than 100 feet away from me was a beautiful doe. We watched each other for about 30 seconds, then she turned her attention back to the main reason she was standing there. From around a small grove of trees on the grounds ran her 2 fawns. They cantered and galavanted and pranced about under the watchful eye of their mother for a good 3 - 5 minutes, closing at times to about 50 feet from me.

Monther doe then decided playtime was over and walked calmly into the forest. After a couple of seconds, the two fawns realized this and flounced into the trees. I remained there for a short time longer, savouring the treat Mother Nature had bestowed upon me.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2000


My guess would be that it didn't get attention because your tunnel gets used?

That and Davis politicians tend to be...er...freaky.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2000


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