Fun with Wildlife

No large critters camping, at least not real close. At home a black bear visited us outside by the fire one night, a little close. Another day one confronted DW while watering plants, huffed at her and she got in the house real quick. And another morning one kept me from leaving to take the kids to school and go to work. Apparently the driveway next to my truck was just right.

Another morning I almost had to pick up a guy walking his dog, a mother and two cubs were very close. Maybe it was the same family that visited me one afternoon while I was working on the camper. Walked around the other side to see them 75' away.

We've also had coyotes come through, and more deer that we can count (as many as 15 at a time). Smaller critters include turkey, raccoon, possum, skunk etc.

When I was a kid a wild donkey somewhere "out west" decided Dad's van's side mirror was a great scratching post. On a later trip we left the store by old Faithful and got into the truck only to turn on the headlights and realize we had just walked within a few feet of a bison.

Just a couple weeks ago we were on Asateague and the wild horses sure get close. But the hardly seem wild if you respect them.

rfryer wrote:
In 50 years of tramping the mountains I’ve had many “close encounters” with wildlife. Some of them hunting, but some were working and some camping. More with rattlesnakes when working than anything else.

Back in the 60’s my job was to develop maps in remote areas and that involved surveying the country first. That was the era of transits and chains and you pushed through whatever brush and obstacles you needed to in order to maintain a straight line. That practice will put you in conflict with a LOT of rattlesnakes, and it did. I don’t know how many I shot, 20 is probably conservative. And that doesn’t include the ones that were far enough away I didn’t think they were a threat. And a point to remember, they do not always buzz, sometimes they just strike.

I had three incidents hunting that I recall. Once I was on a small rise in a bunch of saplings and a big bull elk stepped out onto a 4WD road about 70 yards away. I hit him square in the chest and he came barreling up the hill right at me. I don’t remember being scared, but after the 3rd solid hit that had no effect on him I knew things were getting dicey. At the 4th round he stopped about 10 yards in front of me, then turned and ran back down the hill and I dropped him on the road with my last round. I often wondered if he was going to teach me an object lesson or somehow didn’t see me. It’s immaterial, though, it doesn’t matter if you’re skewered accidentally or deliberately.

Another occasion I was deer hunting and met a rancher in a jeep back in the hills. While we were talking a lion screamed very near us. The rancher said that’s a lion, do you want a ride out with me. I said no, I’m going on hunting. Translated meaning I’m too macho to let you think I’m some city boy scared of a lion.:) Oddly enough that lion tracked along with me in the brush for quite a distance, occasionally screaming. To say my senses were at max alert would be an understatement, I’m more wary of lion than bear. With a bear what you see is what you get; a lion can be on you before you even know he’s there. And there are a lot of lion in AZ.

My teenage son had a tenser experience deer hunting with me. He was sitting on a rock on the side of a ridge when he heard a young deer bleat. Then it ran right past him and a few seconds later a big lion landed right in front of him close enough to slap. He was trying to very slowly inch his rifle barrel around when the deer bleated again and the lion was gone. All he remembers is it was big and rippling muscles.

Once I was still hunting turkey and as I came around a bend in a trail I was about 6’ from the rear end of a young buck deer. My first thought was to reach out and poke him with my rifle barrel, and then I thought that probably wasn’t a good idea. So I said “Hello deer” and he leaped 3’ straight up in the air and was gone.

Camping, we were in Yellowstone and people were gathered near a big bull elk grazing along the road so we stopped. The people kept getting closer and closer to the elk and I could see he was getting irritated and I thought pretty quickly someone’s going to get a harsh lesson. Sure enough he spun around and stated tossing his head and pawing the ground and the people scattered like a covey of quail. What’s my DW who takes such good care of me do but think he might charge and get her new car so she gets in and backs away, leaving me standing alone with nothing between me and one po’d bull elk but air. But I guess he was satisfied with scattering everyone and he went on his way.

We were camped in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite many years ago in a PU. It was about 8:00 and our young son was asleep in the PU and we were standing out near the campfire. The DW said she was going to the bathroom up the hill and left. A few seconds later she was back wide eyed and said there’s something out there. A moment later a huge bear lumbered through our camp right between us and the campfire. I know my hair stood straight up and I remember thinking he looked like a Volkswagen with muscles and there isn’t a gun made that’s not on wheels that could put him down at this range. He came through our camp every night for three or four nights after that and we began looking forward to his trips and joked that he was going up the hill to the bathroom.

I apologize for the length of this post, but after all, you did ask if we had any close encounters with wildlife.:B

I think I would pass on going anywhere with you.

A non-dangerous, but startling confrontation.

About a hundred years ago (really ~50), I was driving trucks for a logging company in the back of Maine. One evening, I had to go out an haul in the last load of the day. (Daylight lasts a long time that far north.) It was a long climb up to the driver's seat, but I got somewhat tired and closed the door and settled into the seat to come to the sudden realization that someone - at least a face - was staring back at me though the windshield. I jumped a bit and then sorted out that it was a cow moose that was standing in front of this Mack - Therodyne and looking at me and probably wondering what I was doing. One just does not expect a face that high in the air.

Matt

I came face to face with a black bear a few years back....at my front door at home.

My first summer living in my RV was in South Carolina. I got bit by spiders inside my RV twice (one bite turned black and purple like a bad bruise, was kinda scary), and also had several fire ant colonies in my site and got bit by those multiple times (red swollen pustules, still have some scars). Do the sensible thing and if your going to camp in the southeast for any length of time, do so in the winter when colder temperatures hold the multitudes of insects in check. :P

On the other hand, when I first arrived at Badlands National Park this spring a herd of mule deer would frequently travel through the campground, they'd get quite close and it was neat. When I was at Mt. Rushmore two days ago a mountain goat was mowing down grass not 15 feet from the trail, also cool. I also got to see a coyote driving home from my work camping job one night, waiting to cross the road.

Not while camping - yet, but one night when we came home after dark, DH went to the kennel to let our German Shepherd and our Australian Shepherd out. On his way to the kennel the thought he stepped on the hose, then when the GSD came running to me, he stopped, looked at the ground and jumped. Well, the DH hadn't left the hose out, it was the biggest copperhead we'd ever seen. I ran and got the little shotgun and DH shot it. Within a very short length of time, Kota was moaning and a big pus balloon was rising on his hind leg - exactly the same spot he'd been bitten by a black snake almost one year to the day the year before. After a young vet in a local clinic told me we have no poisonous snakes in Indiana (bull roar!) and another quite experience said to give him a couple of aspirins (worst thing you could do for even a two legged with snake bite) we rushed 'Kota to an emergency vet clinic in Indianapolis. When we told the vet the size of the copperhead, I don't think he really believed us and asked us to bring it in the next morning. This was at midnight. We got the last vial of anti-venom he had and had to leave our pet there. When we got home, DH raised the copperhead with a pitchfork to put into a trash bag to take to the vet. It's head was moving and the mouth opened. He didn't believe me, but went ahead and blew its head off. When we took it back in to the vet, he was amazed at how big it was. Everyone is used to a two footer with appropriate width, but this one was much longer and wider around. We let him have it. Two days later and over $700+ dollars, we got our pet back to recover at home. We were fortunate that there were no lasting effects.

The other incident was at our shop just outside Nashville, In. There had been a small copperhead right in front of the shop a couple of days prior, but we hadn't seen anymore of them. DH was talking to a friend in the work area of the shop and I was in my office when I happened to look up and right in the doorway of the furnace room was another copperhead. I called the men and the friend started teasing it with something, then decided to pick it up because it wasn't moving anywhere and he thought it was dead. I gave my husband a small piece of lumber and told him to kill it, which I think he did just to satisfy me. A good thing he did. The copperhead was alive, but the poor thing was stuck in some excess carpet glue left on the floor after carpeting my office a day or two before. It made for a good laugh later.

Never while camping, but frequently at home. According to my wife we are plaqued by 18' rattleing, cottonmouthed anacondas. The last one found was in my garage behind one of the refrigerators. As I removed it, it turned into a 3' black snake. Tossed him into the woods.

Walking up the back side of my motorhome in south Texas, I heard a rattle, I stopped, looked around and there he was about 12" from my foot. He started wiggling under the trailer and I went inside to change my pants. Now I couldn't have him hanging around our space so I went hunting. I grabbed him by the tail, pulled him out from under the trailer and smashed in his head. Thank God he wasn't coiled up or things would have come out a lot different.

It's been another dry year here in the high desert and the pinyon forest isn't providing any food for it's inhabitants. We bring our humming bird feeders in at night so as to not tempt the bears but twice this summer the bears have beat us to it. One evening just as it's getting dark the dog goes nuts and we hear feeders rattling against the house. There's a cinnamon black bear by the open window. I shined my Superbright™ LED light in his face and growled at hi and he ran off. Two nights later the same scene except it's a bigger blacker bear and he didn't scare. I had to go out with my 12g and fire a round over his head so we could retrieve the feeders. Now we bring them in earlier.

We took a spring trip to Alta Lake State Park in north central WA and while sitting and having lunch, I noticed a lot of bird activity at our refrigerator vent. Those little guys decided our vent would make a wonderful nest. Had nearly a half dozen twigs going before we decided to discourage this activity for their own sake.