Share your terrifying wildlife encounters here.

[Jara sang]

In Hawaii, it was late at night and I was on the computer. I had a blanket draped over my legs and feet, because I was cold(Yes, it does get cold in Hawaii) I felt something crawl across my bare foot. My first instinct was that it was a cockroach which didn't really startle me because cockroaches are a fact of life in Hawaii. So I pull the blanket back to crush the cockroach and... there is a six inch long centipede twisting back and forth, in all it's blue-green-orange, multi-legged glory. I freaked. there just so happened to be a brick nearby so I grabbed it and tried to smash the centipede to no avail because the carpet had just enough give and the centipede has a hard exoskeleton. So I trapped it and took it out to the carport where I was able to destroy the insidious creature. These centipedes are highly poisonous and their stings are extremely painful. Across my foot! Ahh!

I have also swam with Nurse sharks in Florida and Black-tipped Reef sharks in the So. Pacific, both harmless, but recognizing that you are in the water with a shark, all be it a harmless one really gets your heart pumping.

[LynneSin]

1. I would have to say Matcom, DS1 and Underpants in Washington DC

[sundog]

2. thanks for sharing your shark story Jara

[Jara sang]

7. It's all good

The Nurse sharks I saw in the Florida Keys were cool. The National Park Service had this program where they were asking snorkelers to report any nurse shark sightings and if possible get a tag number. The tags are about a half inch long and the numbers are about the same size as this text, maybe a little bigger. I was able to read the numbers on the tag, so I got REAL close. I reported to the NPS biologist, filled out a report. It was pretty cool being part of an informal scientific study like that.



Nurse shark

[sniffa]

3. i encountered a bear at a rest stop

[sundog]

6. woof!

[sniffa]

17. i was hoping someone wouLd get it

[sundog]

20. i fear i did all too quickly

[Jara sang]

23. I got it too

There is a rest area outside Richmond Va that was known for a prime ursine mating ground, must be on the migratory route.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

43. .

[bicentennial_baby]

45. .....

[Texasgal]

4. I once had a

Trianchala (sp?) move across my foot while camping.

I didn't kill it though... he was pretty cool looking.

[sundog]

9. they are harmless

i think they are cool too... one lives in my garden... i leave it alone

[progmom]

14. is that the same as a tarantula?

[sundog]

18. no, it's a distant cousin that only has three legs

[Texasgal]

35. Yeah...

That's it.... my spelling sucks!

[sundog]

39. hehehe

[Jara sang]

19. I saw a tarantula in New Mexico once.

It was one of the coolest things I've seen. I've always wondered if they are endemic to the south-west and how many different species live there. They must be endemic.

[Squatch]

5. Bumped by a sixgill shark in the PNW

at night and 60 FSW. Scared the bejeezus out of me.

[Squatch]

10. Oh...and I also saw Bigfoot once. Does that count?

[Taverner]

34. Seriously?

wasn't just a death cult member in the Ashland area?

[Squatch]

37. Yes, seriously.

North Central Washington State (vicinity Curlew), 1996.

[Taverner]

40. Hmmmmm tell me more

I've always been a skeptic on thing supernatural...but I've also felt there are many species we have not catalogued.

What did it look like? Smell like? Did it make any noise?

[Jara sang]

42. Here is the bigfoot guy in Virginia.

He claims he saw one in Culpepper, not far from D.C. He used to design surveillance equipment for the government. Now he chases bigfoot all the time. Though I am a skeptic, I do find interesting.

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=82...

[Squatch]

51. I was hunting mule deer

Had crawled into a big root wad as my treestand. Had a .44 magnum revolver as my firearm. I was looking down the slope (covered with lodgepole pines and tamaracks) toward a small brook. The brook provided a bright background.

At about shooting light, I hear one of my buddies about 1/2 mile away shoot at a deer. I ready myself for what will be the rush of animals away from that spot.

I see a creature silhouetted against and following the brook. I only see it from about the shoulders up at this point.

It reaches a point directly in front of me, stops, and then stands more upright. It looks back uphill from when it was coming, turns back around, and then takes off again.

It moved like water. Extremely fluid. It was about my size (6'3"), covered with hair, and very broad. Didn't get a smell of the thing since I was uphill and upwind. I don't think it knew I was there.

At that time, my .44 mag felt pretty puny. I went back to camp and ended my year long abstinence from alcohol.

[Taverner]

55. Wow....

So from what you could tell, did it look more like a hairy human or more primate like?

[Squatch]

56. Both? LOL.

It was definitely not human.

[Jara sang]

12. Squatch? What is PNW?

I feel like I should know this but I don't.

[Squatch]

13. Pacific Northwest...

In this case, Puget Sound

[Jara sang]

16. Sweet! Have you seen giant octopus?

Aren't they in Puget Sound?

[Squatch]

22. Many times. I've even handled them at depth

They're very nonagressive and highly inquisitive.

[seemunkee]

8. Nothing really terrifying

All the time I spent in the woods I never had any major problems with critters. I've never even seen a bear while out hiking.

Sitting on a rock putting on my shoes I heard somthing moving and saw it was a copperhead. I moved and everyone was happy.

Out picnicing in Shenadoah with my not yet wife. Turns out we were sitting at the intersection of a couple of game trails. a deer came barrelling down towards us and didn't see until I got up to get out of its way. It swerved off and we continued with the fondue.

6 of us had our backpacks lined up along one wall of a shelter along the AT. A skunk meandered in during the night and walked along the space between the packs and the wall. We woke our friend up when the tail end of the skunk was about 6 inches from his face. I've never seen anyone jump that far while still in a sleeping bag.

[bertha katzenengel]

31. "I've never seen anyone jump that far while still in a sleeping bag."

[Silverhair]

11. Raised in rural Texas - Rattlers

Rolled a log over and rattler was under it. Jumped about 10 feet backward before I could think.

Working in corral, pulling on a rope, backing up toward a rattler. At about 6 feat it rattled.

Many other encounters with them. All that stuff about freezing and slowly moving away is impossible - at least for me. I always jumped away as a reflex.

Once I was walking in the brush at dusk and a coyote let loose with a mighty howl about 30 feet away. I nearly jumped out of my skin. But then I settled down as they are harmless to humans.

Deer hunting once and came across puma tracks. Never saw the cat.

Had a skunk get under the house once, and he couldn't find the little door to get back out. Where I live now we get a skunk that visits, but NOT under the house, about once a month.

Dad sometimes found baby animals and brought them home to raise. We had a pet raccoon once and a pet bobcat that we raised from babies. The bobcat was just like an overgrown house-cat - purred and liked to be petted. Dogs didn't mess with him more than once. Raccoons are smart!! And they have hands and can climb. They get into stuff, but they can be fun too.

[Jara sang]

15. Coyotes freak me out at night.

I swear their howls sound like lost children. I have seen non-poisonous snakes mimic rattlers before too. But no Rattlers though, where I grew up it was Water Moccasins and Copperheads.

[Silverhair]

21. Moccasins and copperheads are worse. They don't warn you first.

Really, I will take a rattler everytime.

I leaned to love the sound of coyotes. Hard to explain.

[Left_Winger]

24. Here's mine

I am an avid bicyclist and enjoy long rides. One of my favorite routes is in a rural part of Georgetown County, SC. The road is one long causeway through a swamp with little to no traffic so I usually have the road all to myself. Last summer while cruising down this road I came to a bend and right out in the middle of the road was a six-foot alligator sunning itself. I went from 20 MPH to a dead stop in no time flat and ended up about three yards from this gator. Luckily it only turned toward me, but that was it. I almost peed in my pants as I made a quick turn around and put some distance between us. The one thing that really scared me is that gators can move! I had no way around it so I had to wait about thirty minutes before it went back into the swamp and I could continue.

BTW, I still ride this road and haven't had any other encounters with wildlife except for the occasional snake.

[Jara sang]

27. Holy crap! That's the worst one yet.

Tough it would be interesting to see a gator, i've never seen one in the wild.

[RebelOne]

36. My brother once found an alligator in the road.

So he grabbed it, put it in his car trunk and drove it to the police station, went inside and said, "I have a little something for you.' My brother did not have a good relationship with the local police, so this was his way of retaliating because they had to take it.

This was in Miami Springs, Florida. There are quite a few alligators around that area because there is a canal dividing Miami Springs and Hialeah and they come from there.

[Mizmoon]

25. Once a giant, rabid St. Bernard trapped me in a car

I was stuck there for hours with my young son before we managed to escape!

[peacebuzzard]

26. Wow I'm dyslexic today, I read" terrifying wife encounters" & I thought of

"terrifying husband encounters" .....well, I have had 2 terrifying husbands I encountered, but got rid of them. One took too long....7 years and the other one, one long emotion heavy year. But I survived!

[cally]

28. A gaggle of geese

I know it's funny but a gaggle of geese tried to attack my family. Our kids were toddlers and the geese kept coming. We jumped on a table and they still wouldn't go away. I hate geese.

My family used to hike up this small waterfall. We usually went barefoot or had on flip flops since we would boat over there. I was leading the way to the top pool. As I climbed over the last boulder I peaked over and I was about a yard away from a rattler drinking from the pool. I backed away slowly and didn't go back that year.

[Jara sang]

30. Geese are fierce

I've had them fly right at me at head high level and if I had not have ran it sure would have started pecking my eye balls out.

[bertha katzenengel]

29. a praying mantis leapt onto my cheek

(my face, that is)

or was it the time a deerfly bit my ankle?

I've been lucky.

[Jara sang]

32. Praying Mantis are cool.

I like they way their eyes will will follow you when you come into contact with one.

[Taverner]

33. I had a banded krite in my place in Thailand

banded krites are highly poisonous. Luckily my dog decided he was a thread, and ate him.

I also had a venemous scorpion crawling on my mosquito net trying to get in...

[Merrick]

38. Lion attack!

I was walking in the forest once when I happened across a lady breast feeding her baby. I said hi and walked on but didnt get fifty feet before I heard the bestial rumbling of a lion's growl. Sprinting full speed I made it back just in time to catch this full grown lion in mid-air as it was making to pounce on this poor defenseless woman and her child and I wrestled it to the ground. The fearsome creature got to its feet, growled and leapt at me, but I was ready. I caught him in the jaw and eye socket with a rapid 1-2 karate kick/punch combo that sent him sprawling, but he wasn't about to give up so easily - no, because anyone who knows lions knows that lions have lots of pride, and this one's was obviously hurt. So he pulls out a gun and fires, grazing me in the shoulder, accomplishing nothing other than to seriously piss me off, and before that lion could get off another shot I grabbed him, picked him up by the shoulders, gave him a big, fat kiss on the cheek and threw him in the lake where he drowned.

True story.

[FuzzySlippers]

41. Sometimes doggies bark at me

when I'm out walking.

[Jara sang]

44. Doggies?

Where do you live? The land of rainbows and lollipops?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

46. There was a yellowjacket in my house once

and as a kid, we would get bats in the attic every once in a while.

[Jara sang]

47. I like bats.

For someone who is not "outdoorsy" bats could potentially be very traumatic.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

48. I like bats too. We've got a lot of them in my city neighborhood.

my cats sit in the window and watch them divebombing mosquitoes at night.

I was actually just kidding about my lack of contact with nature. My city neighborhood has skunks, racoons, squirrels, oppossums, and a peregrine falcon that unfortunately preys on the songbirds that hang out around here. Boston has a lot of green space, so there's even been coyote attacks on housepets in city neighborhoods. Jamaica Plain has the pond and the Arnold Arboretum, so there's many critters in that area.

Down the Cape there are coyotes everywhere. You can hear them howling at night. I have seen them in the marsh on walks. They look like dogs with pointy ears. They're scary though...

[Jara sang]

49. The emerald necklace.

Isn't that what those parks are called? I'm a big fan of Olmsted's.

[FuzzySlippers]

54. I was dog sitting at my brother's house one time,

and a bat started flapping around the bedroom where I was sleeping. I didn't know what to do, so I called the police. They actually came and removed it!



Ahhh, small town Iowa life. There were four cop cars parked outside. I guess nothing else was going on, so they all decided to come and check out the bat house. The neighbors must have thought someone had been murdered.

[dajoki]

50. i was out for a jog...

in the woods, been on same path many times, and thought i saw a dog's ass sticking out from behind a tree. when i got about 10 ft. away it stood up, it was a BEAR. i stopped in my tracks, picked up a rock, then the bear ran one way and i ran the opposite way. freaked me out!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

52. I am from Maine, but when I was 8 and my baby bro was 5 we visited florida

and were playing mini golf in an RV park that was basically a filled in swamp. We came to hole 8 or what have you and my brother said "Oh look, a nakey!" (He loved to catch garter snakes back home)

Well the nakey was a small one but when it reared up and showed us its fangs I got really scared. I had my brother by the scruff of the neck with one hand and was brandishing my little putter with the other.

Luckily we were able to put some distance between us and the cottonmouth.


Another experience I had was (back home in Maine) I was up in Baxter state park and checking out Sandy stream. I decided to jump out from shore to a big boulder in the pond. Not long after that there was this big crashing sound coming from the woods behind me.

Out comes a momma moose and her baby. She went to the left of the rock and he went to the right.

So there I am between momma moose and her baby and her eyes are rolling in her giant head. I decided the best course of action was to freeze and wait for baby to wander over to momma. He did and I beat feet off that rock and back up the trail.

Another experience up by Baxter, I found out why we are supposed to roll up our sleeping bags when they are not in use. I'd left mine open and went bouncing through the flap of the old canvas tent that was set up just a stone's throw from the pond. I turned to say something to my mother who was following close behind, and there, staring me in the face, was a water spider that was larger than her hand. I'd walked right under it. If we proceeded to try and shake it off the flap, it would surely drop into my open sleeping bag below. But mother, who was never very fond of arachnids, was brave enough to try and pull the flap away from the platform and give it a good poke with a stick. The annoyed spider plunked on the ground and raced back to the water.

[Taverner]

53. Are water spiders poisonous?

I hate spiders!

[GreenPartyVoter]

57. I don't think so.. but they are big enough to eat

fish.