Animal Encounters
Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 10:43AM First let me start by telling you about how I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom last night, and suddenly a disgustingly disgusting centipede crawled out from underneath me. A CENTIPEDE! The thing with a billion legs. It crawled out from underneath my legs! I screamed and then ran for my grandpa to kill it.
But that doesn't really count because insects aren't animals. My real stories both took place when I was traveling and living out west, and both involved getting much too close to large dangerous animals on accident.
The Buffalo
I had been living and working at Yellowstone National Park for several months, so I knew all about animal safety. I saw buffalo on a daily basis - they were practically pets - but I always kept a safe distance. And I already had a million pictures of buffalo to take home with me, so I don't know why I thought it was so important to get a shot of the stray one that was loitering just outside our dorm one day. I guess because it was literally hanging out in the courtyard about two feet from the building when I walked home from lunch. And I had my camera with me. So obviously I'm getting a picture right?
Well, even though I had been a YNP resident for months, I still did that stupid tourist thing where you look through the viewfinder (this was before digital became ubiquitous) and don't realize how close you actually are to something. I was framing the shot in the camera and stepping ever-closer to the buffalo. I finally took the picture and pulled the camera from my face, and hello! Buffalo standing about four feet away from me. Giant, hairy, dangerous animal within kill-me-with-practically-no-effort distance.
After I peed my pants a little, I darted back to the building's entrance and let that beast mind it's own business. Sadly, I have no idea where that picture is anymore.
The Moose
Before moving to Yellowstone, my sister and I and two friends putzed around the Rockies for about a month. One day we set up camp near a stream, and one of the friends went upstream to fish. I joined him for awhile, but quickly got bored and headed back toward camp. I was walking along, watching my feet as I navigated the rock-filled terrain, when suddenly I looked up and found myself face-to-ass with the backside of a moose. I don't think I've ever been so scared. With no exaggeration, that moose was just beyond my arm's reach before I noticed it.
I completely blanked. What are you supposed to do again? Run? Not run? Play dead? Make moose noises to fool them? I'm in the middle of the wilderness with a giant fucking bull moose, and I couldn't remember anything I had learned. Have you ever seen a moose? They're huge. Especially the males. Luckily it wasn't a mama protecting her babies because then I'm pretty sure I'd be dead instead of blogging right now. But still, my heart is racing just remembering this. I mean the males have those giant menacing antlers that could rip you in half and break all your bones!
Eventually I slowly backed away as quietly as possible, and when it was out of my sight, I ran as fast as I could over the rocks back to my fishing friend. I think moose are fascinating animals and actually quite beautiful, but I never need to see a live one that close again.
(Photos are not mine.)
Friends, Just stuff, Travels
Reader Comments (5)
I got close to a wild burro in Red Rock Canyon one time using the view finder because, although I had a digital camera, the desert sun was too much to use the non-viewfinder screen. I totally know your feeling on the buffalo.
So, reading your title I totally thought your post was going to be about bad experiences with humping dogs and shedding cats, not a fucking moose! Obviously your animal experiences and my animal experiences are rather different.
How completely awesome. I've always wanted to visit Yellowstone. What were you doing there?
I feel so lame - my close encounters with animals usually involve dogs, feral cats, rats, mice, squirrels and the occasional deer.
My favorite huge-animal-almost-mauling-me story is a quite hilarious one. I went to the San Diego zoo with my friend Amy. We were talking about how only a fifteen foot gap seperated us from the lion, plus a plexi glass window that came up to our waists. As we were talking about wheter the lion can't jump over that hole, or just hasn't yet jumped over it, he suddenly with his huge mane stands up looks at us... I swear... swipes his feet on the ground like a cat does before it pounces. Amy went running and screaming. I had faith in that hole and stayed there and laughed as she ran away. He didn't jump it as you may have guessed... although I'm still not convinced he can't. The funniest part is she's so not a run away screaming type of person!