I remember when I was attacked by a drop bear...
I've never been the same since... BWA ha ha haaaa - who said that?
I've never been the same since... BWA ha ha haaaa - who said that?
IRL Wildlife Encounters
- Thread starter Markiz
- Start date
Real life encounters with animals in the game for me:
My time in Alaska
While driving into Denali, I would see Dall sheep looking down at me on the cliffs.
Almost charged at by a moose.
Grizzly bear was about 300ft away, me and friends made noise, waved our hands letting the bear know where we are, acknowledged us and went about his or her day.
A recently tagged wolf ran next to my bus.
In Monterey: a California sea lion jumped onto a dock next to the boat I was boarding.
In Vermont: plenty of times had raccoons run by me, close calls with skunks and rare but nice times seeing foxes.
In Maine: my current job, I take people to an island where gray seals haul out, one day we could hear the gray seal males making noise and it was neat to see their size difference to harbor seals.
My time in Alaska
While driving into Denali, I would see Dall sheep looking down at me on the cliffs.
Almost charged at by a moose.
Grizzly bear was about 300ft away, me and friends made noise, waved our hands letting the bear know where we are, acknowledged us and went about his or her day.
A recently tagged wolf ran next to my bus.
In Monterey: a California sea lion jumped onto a dock next to the boat I was boarding.
In Vermont: plenty of times had raccoons run by me, close calls with skunks and rare but nice times seeing foxes.
In Maine: my current job, I take people to an island where gray seals haul out, one day we could hear the gray seal males making noise and it was neat to see their size difference to harbor seals.
My vacations and trips have sadly been limited to Europe only, but I did manage to see some cool animals here!
- There are plenty of chances for wild encounters in Eastern Poland, and I did catch some interesting animals:
I saw Red Foxes two times, one while being in the car with my family in a forest, and one while walking towards our vacation home at midnight (I was definitely more scared than he was!)
Another animal I saw two times is the Moose: One time from afar and one time while my mother was driving along a remote road (and almost running over a mother with her calb in the process.)
The next encounter wasn’t really a wild encounter, but it was impressive nonetheless. There was a reserve for European Bison and they are so fing majestic. Definitely won’t ever forget that.
Sadly, I haven’t been too lucky in Germany with rather rare species, but I’ve still made some experiences nonetheless:
Roe Deer and Hares are plenty here, but they’re still really cool.
There once was a pine marten in my grandmother’s garden.
There’s a multi-square kilometre reserve for Wild Boars near where I live, so while I didn’t really ever see them truly in the wild, I at least got to see how it would be.
I really hope I’ll one day be able to see species like Beavers (they’ve expanded into a river near me), Badgers and especially Lynxes or wildcats!
- There are plenty of chances for wild encounters in Eastern Poland, and I did catch some interesting animals:
I saw Red Foxes two times, one while being in the car with my family in a forest, and one while walking towards our vacation home at midnight (I was definitely more scared than he was!)
Another animal I saw two times is the Moose: One time from afar and one time while my mother was driving along a remote road (and almost running over a mother with her calb in the process.)
The next encounter wasn’t really a wild encounter, but it was impressive nonetheless. There was a reserve for European Bison and they are so fing majestic. Definitely won’t ever forget that.
Sadly, I haven’t been too lucky in Germany with rather rare species, but I’ve still made some experiences nonetheless:
Roe Deer and Hares are plenty here, but they’re still really cool.
There once was a pine marten in my grandmother’s garden.
There’s a multi-square kilometre reserve for Wild Boars near where I live, so while I didn’t really ever see them truly in the wild, I at least got to see how it would be.
I really hope I’ll one day be able to see species like Beavers (they’ve expanded into a river near me), Badgers and especially Lynxes or wildcats!
Amazing photos !Ooh what a fun thread, right up my alley! I've been wildlife watching and keeping a list of what I've seen for nearly 8 years now, more seriously over the past 4 years, and as of now I've seen 50 mammals, 281 birds, 58 reptiles (only found species number 58, the Mallee Black-backed Snake, last Sunday) and 8 frogs in the wild. Funnily enough my 50th mammal species, seen in Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park last July, was the Western Quoll or Chuditch, which is quite fitting for that milestone given it's the name I go by online. I made a collage of each wild mammal species I have seen to celebrate the achievement:
The pictures I used in the collage aren't my own (I'm not that good lol), but I'm also a pretty ok-ish wildlife photographer. Here are some of my favourite photos from the past year and a half:
One of several Eastern Brown Snakes seen on the same day (October 2022)
A Thick-tailed Barking Gecko found via some good ol' rock flipping (September 2022)
Tawny Frogmouth more like scorny frogmouth amiright lads (September 2022)
A Western Grey Kangaroo having a quick arm scratch (September 2022)
An Eastern Bearded Dragon displaying angrily at me before I moved it off the road (August 2022)
A pair of Emu roaming wild in Monarto Safari Park (July 2022)
The dastardly European Rabbit, invasive extraordinaire (March 2022)
A Lace Monitor in Mt Remarkable National Park (February 2022)
An Australian Pelican who is a regular visitor to a particular jetty near me (January 2022)
An Australian Sea Lion at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island (December 2021)
A bull Dromedary displaying to his harem in central Australia (July 2021)
A beautiful black Dingo near Uluru, its fur soaked by morning dew (July 2021)
A Black-flanked Rock-wallaby feeding on the outskirts of Alice Springs (July 2021)
This year has also been the first for which I've been keeping a year list, and it's been a great motivator to go exploring regularly - so far I've recorded 23 mammal species, 160 birds, 33 reptiles and 3 frogs over the past 9 months. I've mainly been focusing on herping this spring, and I plan to continue that trend while the snakes are nice and active (it's breeding season for them, as it is for most things). So far I've seen lots of brown snakes, and now I'm planning on searching for red-belly blacks, tigers and pygmy copperheads just to the south of the city. Now that I've seen a quoll, I've also got two new big targets for species to add to my life list - a carpet python for reptiles, and krefft's glider (recent split of the sugar glider) for mammals. Generally though I'm pretty happy with whatever I see, it's mainly just a nice excuse to get out of the city and explore.
You saw more Australian wildlife than I knew existed
(what is Walaroo?)I would definitely include Platypus photos with others (If I'm not mixing you up with some other user here). If I ever took pics of them you'd never hear me shut up about that
Thanks!Amazing photos !
You saw more Australian wildlife than I knew existed
I would definitely include Platypus photos with others (If I'm not mixing you up with some other user here). If I ever took pics of them you'd never hear me shut up about that
Wallaroos are basically a group of 2-3 macropod species intermediate in size between kangaroos and wallabies, usually inhabiting hilly or rocky areas. Common wallaroos are actually Australia's most widespread macropod and have a huge degree of variation in colour across their range - the ones around here are called euros, not sure why. Funnily enough the red kangaroo is more closely related to the wallaroos (now sharing the genus Osphranter with them, which PZ still needs to recognise) than it is to the two species of grey kangaroo.
I didn't see the platypus within the last year and a half (although 2017 definitely doesn't feel like it was 5 years ago lol) so it didn't fit into the timeframe I was limiting myself to (and even that was tough). I might do a summary of PZ species I've seen in the wild though so I could include those there
EDIT: Two of my many many wallaroo photos
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Does this count?
I spent a summer at a Weather station situated halfway on a hill with a really nice view overseeing the Danube river.
Behind the station main building, the hill kept ascending and it was full of raspberry bushes.
So i was climbing the sunny hill ramp (at about 40-45 degrees angle) while happily picking and munching the ripe berries. You know, it's one here, one there - they do not all ripe at the same time. And slowly i was getting quite high up the hill.
Suddenly, while i was looking/scanning for ripe berries i've seen something moving on a patch of ground between 2 bushes.
Looked more careful and i've seen like 20cm from what was obviously a snake. It was like to my right side, 1-1.5m away from me, but moving towards my general direction
So i havent seen the head nor the tail, just a piece of the body of a snake. Moving.
For a moment i was frozen while i was trying to process what i'm seeing, then i turned 180 and let myself run down the slope, through the raspberry bushes, at full speed, while in absolute panic mode.
Luckily, i managed to get down while on my feet (instead or rolling down like a rock) but my shirt, my pants and my skin too were shredded by a thousand cuts from the raspberry bushes thorns
To my defense, i was 11 yo at the time, had a solid imagination and heard a lot of stories about the Adders (Vipera ammodytes) that were supposedly living in that general area.
My aunt (she was assigned as the on-duty meteorologist for 6 months at that specific station) used 2 first aid kits worth of bandages to patch me up.
I spent a summer at a Weather station situated halfway on a hill with a really nice view overseeing the Danube river.
Behind the station main building, the hill kept ascending and it was full of raspberry bushes.
So i was climbing the sunny hill ramp (at about 40-45 degrees angle) while happily picking and munching the ripe berries. You know, it's one here, one there - they do not all ripe at the same time. And slowly i was getting quite high up the hill.
Suddenly, while i was looking/scanning for ripe berries i've seen something moving on a patch of ground between 2 bushes.
Looked more careful and i've seen like 20cm from what was obviously a snake. It was like to my right side, 1-1.5m away from me, but moving towards my general direction
So i havent seen the head nor the tail, just a piece of the body of a snake. Moving.
For a moment i was frozen while i was trying to process what i'm seeing, then i turned 180 and let myself run down the slope, through the raspberry bushes, at full speed, while in absolute panic mode.
Luckily, i managed to get down while on my feet (instead or rolling down like a rock) but my shirt, my pants and my skin too were shredded by a thousand cuts from the raspberry bushes thorns
To my defense, i was 11 yo at the time, had a solid imagination and heard a lot of stories about the Adders (Vipera ammodytes) that were supposedly living in that general area.
My aunt (she was assigned as the on-duty meteorologist for 6 months at that specific station) used 2 first aid kits worth of bandages to patch me up.
Absolutely counts
We have plenty of V.Ammodytes here. We call them "Poskok", which translates to "Jumping snake". Probably comes from old folk describing snake reflexes.
Used to have a family of hedgehogs living in my garden at my last flat (introduced, obviously). At my parents house, we get the odd brush-tailed possum.
And birds. Lots of birds.
Coolest wild animal encounter though was when I was a kid and we took a "water taxi" between two parts of a hike we were doing (the middle segment was closed). There were little blue penguins in the water.
And birds. Lots of birds.
Coolest wild animal encounter though was when I was a kid and we took a "water taxi" between two parts of a hike we were doing (the middle segment was closed). There were little blue penguins in the water.
Snowy owl on my porch eating a dead rabbit. Later that day a red fox stole that rabbit after the owl spooked
Neat! I saw my first little penguins only last year, when I took an evening tour of one of the colonies on Kangaroo Island. I'd love to see them out swimming like that.
I live in Australia, and I see a lot of wildlife given my living preferences.
Snakes
Brown snake, red bellied black, carpet python, spotted python, children's python, whip snakes, green tree snake.
Notes: many of these I met in the house, never freak out or move fast, walk slowly and give space, if the snake charges move out of the way calmly. They charge at you if you are in their escape path.
Kangaroos and Wallabies
Red, grey kangaroos and yellow footed rock, Marsh and agile Wallaby.
Note: kangaroos are dangerous, in the wild the males are more aggressive during mating and will chase down and attack you. Do not approach wild kangaroos, as long as you stay 5-10m away they should ignore you.
Birds
Too many to count, they are everywhere. Most notable is the 1000 strong flocks of sulphur crested cockatoos (the noise is deafening) in mount Isa and the thousand budgy swarms over the northern territory desert. Wedge tailed Eagles are regular diners on carcasses deep inland on the highways between Qld, nt and sa.
Bats
Fruit bats, they are everywhere. In mount isa an entire flock roosted two roads from me, they were loud, but watching them fly out and back in at dawn and dusk was beautiful. At one point I was caring for one of the injured fruit bats in my yard.
Lizards
Bearded and water dragons are everywhere in Qld, I see them napping on river and roadsides all the time, I pick up babies to relocate while mowing. Blue tongues - I have a garden buddy who I have known since they were only a 15cm baby, they are 35cm long now and only 5% of that is tail! Tata lizards, goannas and Skinks always common in bush.
Crocodiles
Swam with freshwater Crocs at the Riversleigh national Park. Went fishing with salties basking at Burke town.
Dingoes
Seen plenty of wild dingoes further inland of qld, even saw one wandering around a petrol station along McKinlay Rd.
Wombats, echidnas, platypus
Sighted platypus in rivers in Daintree. Wombats in NSW. Echidnas where I live just going around doing their thing.
Deer Yes, we have feral deer. We have an albino and melanistic in a small herd of 8 in my suburb. I see them at 3-6am when going for drives or walks.
Sharks, dolphins, whales
Great white, hammerhead, white tipped, bottlenose, killer and humpback on the coast. Only saw whales in NSW, the hammerhead in SA. The rest along Qld coast between Goldcoast and Mackay.
Photo of my backyard buddy
Snakes
Brown snake, red bellied black, carpet python, spotted python, children's python, whip snakes, green tree snake.
Notes: many of these I met in the house, never freak out or move fast, walk slowly and give space, if the snake charges move out of the way calmly. They charge at you if you are in their escape path.
Kangaroos and Wallabies
Red, grey kangaroos and yellow footed rock, Marsh and agile Wallaby.
Note: kangaroos are dangerous, in the wild the males are more aggressive during mating and will chase down and attack you. Do not approach wild kangaroos, as long as you stay 5-10m away they should ignore you.
Birds
Too many to count, they are everywhere. Most notable is the 1000 strong flocks of sulphur crested cockatoos (the noise is deafening) in mount Isa and the thousand budgy swarms over the northern territory desert. Wedge tailed Eagles are regular diners on carcasses deep inland on the highways between Qld, nt and sa.
Bats
Fruit bats, they are everywhere. In mount isa an entire flock roosted two roads from me, they were loud, but watching them fly out and back in at dawn and dusk was beautiful. At one point I was caring for one of the injured fruit bats in my yard.
Lizards
Bearded and water dragons are everywhere in Qld, I see them napping on river and roadsides all the time, I pick up babies to relocate while mowing. Blue tongues - I have a garden buddy who I have known since they were only a 15cm baby, they are 35cm long now and only 5% of that is tail! Tata lizards, goannas and Skinks always common in bush.
Crocodiles
Swam with freshwater Crocs at the Riversleigh national Park. Went fishing with salties basking at Burke town.
Dingoes
Seen plenty of wild dingoes further inland of qld, even saw one wandering around a petrol station along McKinlay Rd.
Wombats, echidnas, platypus
Sighted platypus in rivers in Daintree. Wombats in NSW. Echidnas where I live just going around doing their thing.
Deer Yes, we have feral deer. We have an albino and melanistic in a small herd of 8 in my suburb. I see them at 3-6am when going for drives or walks.
Sharks, dolphins, whales
Great white, hammerhead, white tipped, bottlenose, killer and humpback on the coast. Only saw whales in NSW, the hammerhead in SA. The rest along Qld coast between Goldcoast and Mackay.
Photo of my backyard buddy
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This is the complete opposite of my experience. I must have had encounters with thousands upon thousands of wild kangaroos (red, western grey and eastern grey alike), and every one has either been timid or just ignored me. I've never had a kangaroo display aggressive behaviour towards me, even the big males. I've also never heard of someone being killed in a kangaroo attack, especially in modern times, let alone two per year - where did you get that statistic?
You must have ridiculously aggressive kangaroos in your area lol.
EDIT: Apparently this year had the first fatal kangaroo attack since 1936, when a 77-year-old man was killed by his pet roo. Definitely not 2 per year. Kangaroo attacks as a whole are rarely reported, especially given how much people and kangaroos interact.
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I live in Qld, the big Reds are pretty angry here at mating season. Statistic is easy to google - refer to any gov website. on sept 13 this year there was a 60yo man who died to a roo attack. July 2022 a 3yo child has her femur broken and serious injuries on Fraser island by a roo attack, a woman attacked in April 2022 on a golf course. Plenty more.
Best advice is don't approach wild roos. We shouldn't encourage it either way, people get a false perception they are placid because of the walk through habitats.
Again, you said 2 people died per year, when that man was the first person killed in nearly a century (and it was pet kangaroo, not even a wild one). Given how often people and kangaroos interact, the proportion of attacks is extraordinarily low.
We also shouldn't give people the false perception that wild kangaroos are super aggressive and box anyone on sight, because it just isn't true. They act just like deer.
I do not wish to hijack this thread, we can continue this in pms if you like. I only did a quick Google on deaths so could be misguided.
I don't really see a reason to take it to PMs given I was mainly trying to stop people from outside Australia getting the wrong impression, but you're right, there's no reason to turn this into an extended argument.
Australia has enough deadly animals without throwing kangaroos in the mix.
Australia has enough deadly animals without throwing kangaroos in the mix.
You’ve got,,, um,.. kiwis. I’m sure they could give you a nasty peck??
Here we go:I might do a summary of PZ species I've seen in the wild though so I could include those there
Platypus - I've told this story before, but I might as well retell it here for the sake of it. During a short family trip to the Wet Tropics of Queensland in 2017, I managed to spot 6 different individuals over a period of no more than half an hour while strolling along a river, which was the highlight of the trip alongside seeing the Great Barrier Reef and musky rat-kangaroos (not an exciting animal to most, but seeing the world's most ancient macropod in the wild was a thrill for me!).
Common Wombat - My local wombat species is the southern hairynose, with the common wombat only being found in the far southeast of the state and not in very high numbers. Nonetheless I saw them on a trip to Naracoorte Caves National Park in December 2020, when after over 5 hours of searching I managed to encounter two over a period of only a few minutes around 10:30 pm. Each sighting was brief and I didn't get good photos of either, but I was just exhilarated that all that searching wasn't for nothing!
Koala - It may seem a bizarre situation to some, but koalas are actually an invasive species in my local area; due to fears of them going extinct in Victoria, a handful of individuals were introduced to the Adelaide Hills in the 1960s (where they did not previously occur, at least in historic times), and from there a population that may number as many as 100,000 koalas has descended. While this may seem like a great success story in regards to establishing an insurance population, it has had a negative effect on the forests where mass defoliation has occurred.
Given how high their numbers are here, I probably live in one of the best places in the world to see koalas and therefore have had countless encounters with them - it's not uncommon for me to see over a dozen on a single bushwalk, and they even make their way down into the city along the river. The photo I've shown below was of a particularly special encounter I had last year with a poor koala that appeared to be in a bad way. After trying and failing to get it to climb a tree for about 10 minutes, I called the park rangers and they took it away to a rehabilitation facility.
Red Kangaroo - Big reds used to occur here on the plains where Adelaide now lies, but they've long since been driven out by development and now you need to drive for about an hour before you get back into the dry habitat where they occur. Once you get out far enough they tend to be very common, but I find them way more skittish than the local grey kangaroos and so getting close to them is always a challenge.
Dingo - Long having been driven out from southern South Australia by the pastoral industry, my encounters with dingoes have been restricted to the desert country north of the dingo fence, particularly in the southern Northern Territory where they are quite common. A chance sighting with a dingo along a road was one of my most prominent memories from a childhood trip to Uluru, so when I did a similar trip in July of last year seeing more dingoes was one of my main goals. Luckily I managed to encounter 4 different individuals, including this pair shown below.
Red Fox - First of the two invasives here (not including the koalas), foxes are very common here both in natural and man-made environments, and I've seen about 8 of them this year alone. It's no mystery why nearly two thirds of the native mammal species that used to occur in the area are now locally or entirely extinct, they're absolutely prolific and voracious predators. A very pretty animal as far as ecological disasters go though.
European Fallow Deer - Continuing the trend of pretty invasive species, I saw my first wild fallow deer only as recently as early 2020, but since then I have seen them many more times. Aside from me just becoming more experienced at finding them, it's likely related to how the local deer population appears to be increasing at an exponential rate, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Saltwater Crocodile - I've only seen salties once, on a brief stop over to Kakadu National Park in 2016 on which I took the Yellow Water Billabong cruise. Saltwater crocodiles were easily seen throughout the billabong, which only brings to mind how many more there must have been under the water that I didn't see. Needless to say, I didn't fancy a swim (although I did swim with freshwater crocodiles in Nitmiluk Gorge, which is too far inland for salties in most cases).
Eastern Bluetongue Skink - Although outnumbered by the related shinglebacks, bluetongues are still pretty common animals around here. They occur throughout the city suburbs, but I tend to see them more often when cruising rural backroads. Like all large lizards I always stop to move them off the road, the amount of roadkill reptiles I see in some areas is quite tragic.
Eastern Brown Snake - The world's second most venomous snake and the one responsible for more deaths from snakebite in Australia than any other... is also my most common local snake. Overdramatisation aside, despite their reputation for being aggressive all I've seen is them being shy, as they're quite a hard snake to get close to once they know you're there - they disappear into dense vegetation as quick as possible, and they're surprisingly fast for a snake! I've seen 5 so far this month given they're extra active in the breeding season.
