Have you ever had a run in with a dangerous wild animal?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

I'm sipping my coffee and dreaming about going camping in the wilderness. Somewhere really remote. It would be awe inspiring, but also in reality I'd be too scared of getting lost or being eaten by some of the local wildlife so will probably never actually do it.

Has anyone been wilderness camping or similar? Did you have any narrow squeaks with snakes/ jaguars/ crocodiles?

Yes, and this was my fault as I never should've gone in the field.

When I was a teenager I competed in athletics and often went for runs around villages/farmland.

At the end of my run I went through a field and I heard this noise behind me... kind of like drums... dum dum.. dum dum.. duh duhm.. duhh duh duhduhduduhduhdudh

Getting faster

It was a bullock. Running.

I turned once and saw it. Ran as fast as I could to the fence. I can't tell you how I got over it. I went back the next day to look. It was chest height and I had basically fell to the floor the other side. I remember hitting the floor and being relieved. I must've put a hand on the top and kind of jumped over. I was so lucky I didn't fall. There have been reports over the years of people being killed by bulls and so on.

U.K. based... I was bit on the hand by a horse when I was 5 or 6. It was my own fault as I was only little and was feeding it grass, but I must’ve had my fingers bent slightly, so it bit straight down onto them hard. I remember the pain and screaming blue murder all the way to the hospital, which was a long bus ride away.
Get a lot of adders round here and almost trod on one a couple of years ago. I have a massive snake phobia so I stepped backwards and waited. I’ve heard so many people say they are really shy and will keep out of your way, but this one didn’t move away. I waited almost 5 minutes and finally dared to take a photo on my phone, before slowly giving it a wide berth and walking round it. Was only when I showed my husband the photo later, that you could clearly see 8 tiny babies too. I was so terrified I hadn’t even noticed, I guess that’s why mum refused to move.
In Tunisia doing a camel trek. They are huge and awkward getting on and off. As I swung my leg over to get down, I accidentally stood on its tail. The thing lunged at me, hissing so I ran as quick as possible in deep sand! My husband kept getting his leg nibbled on by the camel next to him and there wasn’t much he could do to avoid it so just had to hope it didn’t properly bite. It was drooling smelly green goo all over his leg too, gross!

I was bitten by a feral cat on holiday in Northumberland when I was little. It was hanging around the campsite we were staying on and I couldn't resist going up to it and trying to stroke it and it bit my hand and drew blood. Had to go and have a tetanus. I wonder what sort of cat it was, it was big

Very tame compared to some of the stories on here though ...oh my god

Are you still in Essex @EssexLioness? Is that where the adders are? Just so I can plan my staycation at the opposite end of the country!

A water buffalo narrowly missed falling on me up a mountain in Nepal once. Not a dangerous animal as such, but I doubt it would have been a pain free encounter for me.

@ajandjjmum yes I’m still in Essex. I’m on the edge of a little village though so semi rural. When we first moved here, one of our neighbours excitedly told us one day that he found 3 grass snakes and an adder in his compost bin! 😱I’m still too scared to go near our compost bin and did wonder what on earth I had done in moving here!

Dear God - I don't think I'd have taken down the 'For Sale' sign!!! @EssexLioness Glad DH got rid of our compost heap - it was under the horse chestnut tree, and I was always worried when looking for conkers!

On to the actual thread - we went on holiday to Mauritius, and when we got to our cabin DH called from the bathroom 'don't come in here!' With my fear of snakes, I assumed the worst, but it was infact a scorpion. Trapped it under a glass, and it was safely removed by housekeeping.

One of my most memorable times on safari was on a dusk game drive. We had stopped in a dry river bed for drinks, and as we stood there, we listened to a lion roar from one side of the river bed, only to be answered by another roar from the other side. At that point we moved to sit in the jeep, but it was actually magical, if potentially dangerous.

@ajandjjmum

Are you still in Essex *@EssexLioness*? Is that where the adders are? Just so I can plan my staycation at the opposite end of the country!

You get adders in Cumbria too.

The worst I've had is a fright from a MASSIVE rat in my horses stable... (honestly, I've never seen one so big!😂)

Uncle was attacked by a kangaroo when he lived in Oz, Dr said he was lucky to be alive (we laugh about it now, but I remember my Dad (his brother) and grandmother being so worried.

A friends mother was attacked by a seal in Antarctica, fell onto ice and ended up airlifted to SA for a full shoulder replacement! 🤯

A polar bear tried to rip into our tent once. Luckily we had flares and a gun but it was the scariest night of my life.

Not me personally but DDs were walking home when we lived in Chile, not a long walk just next door. Before they reached our gate a wolf appeared.

Not long after that DH was in area of the garden that was partially sectioned off. He was confronted by something dog like that leaped over him. He’s six foot and this animal easily cleared him without a run up.

@AdoraBell the giant mystery dog sounds terrifying!

I just remembered another snake encounter. 1st night away from DS when he was 15 months old. Stayed at a hotel in Macau and went up to the room to see a long snake slithering under the door. Security eventually came to remove it.

Everyone we told made jokes about the “snake” in the room. No chance of that kind of “snake”. I was knackered after 15 months of sleep deprivation and nodded off as soon as my head hit the pillow. I would have considered sharing the bed with the real snake as long as it didn’t wake me during the night!

I was bitten by a cod in an aquarium in Scotland. It was probably the funniest thing my parents had ever seen.

My husband is 1) Gung ho about stuff and ignores me and 2) Spends large tracts of his life being oblivious to what’s happening around him.

We walked up and down a Greek mountain with native adders. No big deal as we have adders where we live in the UK too. I did tell him to be noisy and keep an eye out as it was peak adder warming up weather. He didn’t listen.

I nipped for a wild wee and rejoined the path to find a stamped on adder in it’s final violent death throes and my husband on the path thirty yards ahead.

Completely fucking oblivious. He’d just been moseying on down that mountain and stomped on a poor adders head. Called him back to view the spectacle and he was completely bemused.

Fucking idiot. Good job I tolerate him! Ha.

I went on a ghost hunt out in the desert whilst in Las Vegas a few years back. We were at the famous Pioneer Saloon and I was standing up, reading some of the newspaper clippings on the wall. I felt something fall right past my face and heard it land on the leather covered bench in front of me. The guide shouted at me to stand really, really still which immediately panicked me. It was a black widow spider

I did once almost run over a marsupial on the A505 near Royston once .

Does that count ?

My MIL on the daily ..

@Huckleberries73

Waves at all the other Saffa’s on the thread

• travelled several hundred miles with a boomslang in our car. Only realised the next time we went out to it and it was a little bit annoyed and wanted out. It met a ignominious death in the door of the car.

• was chased by rhino on foot whilst on a school trip to the pilaneberg. About 10 of us sneaked out of the dorm at first light, and went wandering, only to be chased by a mama rhino. We did not tell the teachers what had happened. Still talked about at school reunions.

-face to face with a honey badger - that was TERRIFYING. Honey badgers are not to be messed with.

And the usual chased by horny elephants, jumped on by parktown prawns, snakes in the house.

I am amazed looking back at how we took it in our stride.

Scotland is way safer.
The scariest thing in my garden is our red squirrel family.

Hehe forgot about the Parktown Prawns. Now they are fugly, even my dog is scared of these. I am sure they are remnants from prehistoric times. And this is the dog that chases Hadedas for a bit of fun.

We have had a lot of mole crickets as well lately. Funny looking things that make their way into the pool quite often. But they bury down into the grass and make a noise all night. But you have to be careful getting one of these out the pool as they shoot acid at you, out their rear end. Even these get relocated 'out the back' as the dog doesn't want to know after being shot in the face a fair few times.

You do have the loch ness monster to look out for now.

Its at pilansburg that the monkeys steal food off the table, hulle het niks skaam....

And at sun city, you cannot leave a window open of your hotel room, there are even signs to tell you to be sure to close them. As the baboons climb up and steal loads of stuff out the rooms. They like shiny things....

@plominoagain

I did once almost run over a marsupial on the A505 near Royston once .

Does that count ?

Theres definitely something eerie about that road!

Lots of wild animals here in the north western U.S.

Here's a rattlesnake we caught sleeping on the lawn yesterday.

It's not just me then ? It's the only road that makes me distinctly uncomfortable when I drive it very late at night .

I actually thought I was hallucinating , until it looked straight at me and then hopped across the road . I thought it was escaped from somewhere like Shepreth Wildlife park , so called the police , and it turns out there are actually wild wallabies out there . Who knew ?

@CorianderBee

A swan had it in for me when I was four. We had quite the tussle at Center Parcs.

This made me laugh so much, thank you.

In the southeastern United States, I've seen wild boar on a nature trail... Seen a copperhead snake on a different nature trail, in the mountains... Heard a pack of coyotes from the safety of my backyard, more than once... Seen a large Eastern diamondback rattlesnake on the dirt road to my house... Seen a few cottonmouths / water moccasins in my yard, at different times... Found many black widow and brown widow spiders and egg sacs in various places around our property... My grandfathers and an uncle have each been bitten, at different times, by brown recluse spiders... My aunt lost a couple of her dogs to a water moccasin that attacked them in her garden, when she was away from home during the day.

None of the creatures I've listed are likely to kill a healthy adult, especially with access to modern medicine, but they can still inflict a lot of pain and do serious damage.

Few Canada tales to even out all the super cool African /Aussie ones

Went to move the wheelie bin, huge racoon stuck at the bottom of it. Had to wait till DH (sorry) got home to remove it.

Inundated with raccoons whilst camping in Canada, they were friggin relentless trying to steal food.

Regular run ins with wild turkeys.

Also, one in the UK, saw someone hit and kill a baby deer