I am currently reading this book about the five large carnivores of Scandinavia and I am absolutely humbled, both by finding out how little I knew about them, what prejudice I had against them and how people that live in close proximity to them can both love, respect and be angry with them at the same time. I am reading the original release in Swedish.
- What have you encountered in the wild?
- When, where, how?
- What were your initial thoughts, feelings and reactions (physical, psychological, etc.)?
- What do think of them in general? <— this last question applies to everybody, regardless of whether you have seen or met one of these large carnivores or not.
Personally, without having met any one of them, I am humbled, scared, amazed and intrigued by them. I feel for those whose - for instance - livestock are threatened by them, especially if it directly damages business. I also strongly believe that the matter should not be dumbed down to the dichotmy of “ignore those that suffer from them” or “eradicate them”. We are far too intelligent and developed a race to degrade ourselves so.
I saw a guy at a McDonalds who needed two chairs to sit. Terrifying.
Probably my buddy Larry. Larry’s out there convincing people to go vegan so there’s more meat for him.
I grew up in Florida as a kid, and I lived on a lake. I have on more than one occasion encountered alligators. They are assholes.
I remember on occasion, I was probably six years old, maybe a little older, and my parents called the police because there were a couple of alligators sunning themselves on the back lawn by our boathouse. The local police came over and clearly had no idea what to do. They started yelling at the alligators, trying to shoo them back into the water, with little success.
Eventually, the two alligators did creep back into the water, but they were lingering around the boathouse, and in an effort to get the larger one, a female, to go away, the frustrated officers began shooting at the water. This did not have the intended effect. Alligators are not just assholes, they’re much more clever than most people seem to think.
As the officers kept firing into the water, the alligator would hiss at them, and then go under the boathouse to the other side. As the officers would run over to the other side, the alligator would hiss and, predictably, go to the other side of the boathouse and hiss them again. This went on for about five minutes or so until my father had the good sense just to tell them to stop and request that they contact animal control.
As soon as the officers backed off and left, so did the alligators, with a noticeable final hiss that I swear was them laughing.
Several black bear sightings (and one very close encounter) at a recent vacation in Tennessee
So many babies!
Oh my god! They are absolutely adorable! Thank you for sharing!
I once walked up on a sow Grizzly bear and her young adult cub while walking my reactive to everything puppy in the woods. We were alone because anything and everything would set her off and she would scream and carry on, and was upsetting my other dog, who I had, in part, to scare bears.
They gave 0 shits about me, and the puppy didn’t notice them, despite being uncomfortably close, thank God.
My initial thought was ‘oh shit’ followed by ‘yeah, I won’t confuse them with black bears’. (Black bears can sometimes be brown, and I had always wondered how I could tell the difference between a brown bear, and a brown black-bear. The answer is: the desire to poop your pants is much greater with brown than black. Black bears, whole they technically kill more people, don’t instigate the same fear response.
I still hike the same hikes, I just double up on deterrant methods, always go with a buddy, and keep my dogs leashed if there is bear activity. (Unleashed dogs on hikes where I live is a cultural norm) Everything has risk, and I live here because I love nature.
I’ve run into coyotes many times, if that counts. You hear them constantly, but they’re shy, so when you do see them up close it’s kinda cool. When it’s happened with other people they’ve been freaked out, but coyotes just don’t attack adult humans. They’re really wired to eat ground squirrels (aka “gophers”) and rabbits; small things.
I’ve been through grizzly bear habitat, but not enough to have one show itself. If it did, I’d probably just mind my business and give it a wide berth. I did know a guy who got eaten, but that’s so rare it doesn’t really change my mind. They’re alright.
Honourable mention for moose, which are pretty aggressive, are fucking huge and do scare me. Like, I’m still fine with them as a concept, and seeing a wild animal that big is amazing if you’re in a safe place, but if something’s going to happen to me, it’s either a human or a moose.
I have had three…
Two were encounters with sharks in the ocean, and while both sharkes were not really larged, less tham three feet in lmgth. When you are in the open ocean they might as well have been Bruce.
(Bruce was the nickname of the mechanical shark in Jaws)
The third was a boar when i was stationed in germany. Again the magnificantion effect, ibet the beasty was maybe 50 pounds. When you are stumbling throught the forest at night with mo lights and a thing about the size of a coffee table starts miving around and making noise…
Why were you in the forest at night with no lights?
… like i said, Germany….
When you train in the Army you dont use lights at night.
Never.
Seriously lucky to live in Australia, rather than growing up somewhere dangerous.
EDIT: /s
But I heard drop bears were a huge danger.
Huge danger, small carnivore. 🐨
Just don’t walk under trees, and you’ll be right.
Sarcasm? Australia is known for having many dangerous/deadly animals.
Yes, you’re right, that was half joking. Have added in the /s.
Australia does not have large carnivores, but you still need to be careful in the bush or outback.
General guideline is, look where you step and don’t put your hand somewhere that you can’t see(under logs, in rusted cars etc.)
The actual top animal dangers in Aus are bees, snakes, spiders, according to this data(2021-2022).
https://aussieanimals.com/conflicts/venomous-creatures-australia/
The two on that list to know, if you plan to visit Australian beaches, is Blue Ring Octopus [ 12 to 20 cm (5 to 8 in) ] and Cone Shell [ 1.3 cm to 21.6 cm ].
They can catch out unaware tourists, who pick them up because they look quite beautiful.
As well as the above two guidelines, another one is to keep hands off any wildlife at the bush or beach.
And yet kinda lacking in large carnivores, I think. They have Crocodiles? I can’t think of anything else.
Sharks. Whites and bulls.
Australians themselves don’t seemed bothered by any of it, except the bush flies, though.
There are so few dangerous animals. Up north there are crocodiles, ask a tropical Aussie how to avoid those.
On the coast there’s the blue ring octopus so we’re taught to not pick up small octopuses, and cone shell molluscs so we wear shoes when walking on seaside rocks and rock pools. There are two dangerous spiders, redbacks are the same as black widows, Sydney funnel-webs weave a distinctive web, you mostly avoid those by not sticking your fingers into finger sized holes,
There are snakes that mostly flee from you. Wait a few metres away from the snake and wait for it to move. Almost all snake bite victims in Australia are snake handlers and wildlife fans.
Our one dangerous bird (cassowary) is only dangerous if cornered and attacked
See, where I live, you can pretty well ignore small creatures, walk barefoot anywhere and stick your bits into whatever you want. The worst thing you can get is a wasp or bee sting. But, yes, in exchange there are things that could rip you to shreds and just choose not to. Edit: I guess there are skunks, still.
Having worked with birds a bit, one that’s big enough to mess you up does scare me pretty good. Mammals have some kind of common sense of fair play, birds are just ruthless.
The bird is a herbivore. It doesn’t want to eat you, it just defends itself
Sure. That is largely based on what you’re used to. Africans also have tons of mostly deadly snakes. None of them seem concerned talking to me about it, despite losing a dog every year or two to venomous snakes.
Mandatory “sounds like they’re just feeding dogs to the local snakes” meme.
Whilst walking my dog at night in Canada. Followed us for a few hundred meters as I walked backwards back home. Pretty sure it was a cougar (mountain lion) as I don’t think a deer would have followed us, let alone without making a sound through the brush.
I would piss myself. Full on piss myself.
Thanks for the picture! How badass!!! What did you feel? Were you affraid? Or just extra cautious?
Where I live bears, moose, and mountain lions aren’t uncommon. But the one where I was the most scared was when I was parasailing in Hawaii and while I was wading in the water and GIANT whale breeched right near me. Like RIGHT near me. He swam right under me after and tickled my feet.
That sounds WILD! :D And frightening… are whales aggressive in general, I wonder?
HuThey aren’t aggressive per saybut their size alone can make them problematic. I was definitely high on adrenaline at the time that’s for sure!
I encountered a large carnivore in the civilized before but not in the wild. Canadian here for what it’s worth. Ran across a black bear on night shift bang in the middle of a massive oil refinery complex. Paved for a kilometre in every direction.
Black bears are very low risk to humans and I had an F350 between me and it, even still it’s just not something you mess with. It changed the whole course of my day instantly as I had to start reporting to site safety etc, I spent the next 3 hours on the radio.
Other than that I’ve seen the occasional lynx or mountain lion, but at great distance. Generally these things aren’t seen by humans unless they want to be or don’t care. You see them because they’re chasing prey or you get lucky and their out sunning themselves or something and you’re far enough away they aren’t threatened.
Large carnivores are pretty rare and not necessarily the largest wild animal threats to humans or livestock. Something like racoons or foxes taking chickens is a much larger nuisance to many more people than something like a mountain lion taking sheep. And something like a moose or a goose is a lot more likely to fuck you up because people don’t perceive these animals as threats and take way larger risks than they do around predators.
Two different days bow hunting turkeys, I ran into black bears. The first one was a younger one, I was heading back to camp, not being particularly observant and then sensed something, looked up and a mid size black bear was about 10-15 yards from me. We both seemed to not notice each other, I just froze and watched him, it started to sniff the air, I began yelling at it and it didn’t seem to care. I slowly started to walk away keeping faced toward it, it still seemed pretty interested in me and started to walk towards me. I nocked an arrow and was ready to shoot it, I didn’t want to but at that moment I had no other option, didn’t have bear spray me. Slowly bent down and pick up a broken pine branch and threw it at it, just short of it and that frighten it enough to take off. A few days later again hiking around looking for turkey, off in the distance I could see something walking through dense brush, watched it for a while until I realized it was another black bear, this one much larger than the other. It didn’t realize I was there, so I screamed a deep loud growl as loud as I could, frightening it, it took off on a dead sprint perpendicular to me, and watched it take off and could hear it for awhile crashing through the brush. I’ve crossed Mexican gray wolves, coyotes, and bobcats several times while outdoors hunting.
I love it all, I have a deep respect for nature and the animals out there.
Several big ass fat black bears in my yard, including one charging straight at me because my neighbors dog was chasing it, thankfully they’re scared of literally everything and it’s never been an issue. Other than that maybe a large bobcat
When i was a kid I lived in the mountains of new mexico, and my dad in his infinite wisdom thought he’d surprise my mom and i by buying me a gokart. There were horse trails behind the house that lead into forest and I’d sometimes take it out over those trails as a kid unsupervised.
There was a point where I was going down one of these and something flashed in front of me and my cart hit the back end of something brown. A small, probably young mountain lion’s ass.
It made a pained hissy growly noise and took off running. I immediately turned around and sped home as fast as i could. Almost pissed myself. even though it was obviously small and not coming after me after I hit it, there was an innate fear that this thing could fucking murder me. It was surprising how much scarier the things are when there is no zoo enclosure glass separating you.
That is rad! Was your cart damaged?
Nope! I wasnt going very fast and i barely clipped it.
How awesome of you dad to give you a gokart, regardless! :D That’s fucking epic! Do you have any pictures, or perhaps a model number so that I can look it up?
Poor animal… but I’m glad you made it out of there unscathed!
Unfortunately that was a long time ago, so i dont know the model or make of it, but it looked kinda like this, except blue
That’s fucking sick. Your dad rocks (at least in that case).
I’ve had multiple encounters with bears, cougars, alligators, and meth heads.
The closets I came to dying was being chased around my car for 30m by a mother black bear after I disturbed her hiding in a basement via coal flue. Lost my keys and had to wait for a park ranger to come save me.
What did Attenborough say about the meth heads? Also, holy shit that must’ve been nerve wrecking… How did the park ranger save you? Was the bear killed?
Jeez, that’s one hell of a workout
Please, elaborate.
Black bear, doe moose, whale.
Black bear fled immediately, moose stood there as moose do, and whale was uninterested.
I walked through a field and stand of trees for months, back and forth to work, before learning a cougar sleeps nearby and probably saw my delicious nerd self - such marbling - twice a day.
“Such marbling”…maybe it didn’t have the right red wine to pair with you.
