Animal encounters/sightings

Thought I'd get a thread going about interesting encounters we've had with animals. Or sightings of rare animals.

Anyways I'll start us out with a story of my own. I was 8 years old, and it was a cool, cloudy summer day. I lived in Bailey at that time, and it was the perfect day for an army man battle. So I stepped outside with my huge container full of army men, and got to playing around 400 ft from the house. Just as a battle was wrapping up, I heard some rustling and a bear came out of the bushes. I was on my stomach playing with army men, and it stared at me. I froze. It was staring at me for like 30 seconds, before it walked off. After that, I slowly picked up my army men, and walked inside.

wow.. pretty cool story.. sounds like you stayed pretty calm for an 8 year old.. jeez hahaah

me and 3 friends were camping on my buddies parent's large property in Monument we were like 12. we woke up in the middle of the night and heard what we thought was bear growls close to the tent. We heard it several times and were pretty shook up. so we decided to get armed. the person closest to the enterance with bear mace, the other three had axe, hatchet, and knife... we fall back asleep clutching our arms and wake up a while because a wild kitty jumped in through the enterance onto the guy with bear mace causing him to freak out a begin spraying the bear mace.

yea it sucked [ROFL1] luckily most of the spray went outside

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Originally Posted by Chad4000

wow.. pretty cool story.. sounds like you stayed pretty calm for an 8 year old.. jeez hahaah

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I was too scared to do anything else.[Abused]

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Originally Posted by aahorn

me and 3 friends were camping on my buddies parent's large property in Monument we were like 12. we woke up in the middle of the night and heard what we thought was bear growls close to the tent. We heard it several times and were pretty shook up. so we decided to get armed. the person closest to the enterance with bear mace, the other three had axe, hatchet, and knife... we fall back asleep clutching our arms and wake up a while because a wild kitty jumped in through the enterance onto the guy with bear mace causing him to freak out a begin spraying the bear mace.

yea it sucked [ROFL1] luckily most of the spray went outside

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Did you all scream like girls?

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Originally Posted by henpecked

Did you all scream like girls?

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like preteen girls at a justin beiber concert

I was working for the summer in Glacier National Park logging and mapping all of the Park's outbuildings in the backcountry with a co-worker. We were walking along a trail quietly, exactly the WRONG way to hike in bear country and we knew it. I was in the lead when we came around a corner to a black bear within arms reach from me. The three of us froze, I pulled the bear spray and then the bear ran up the hill. My co-worker behind me freaked, promptly grabbed my pack and started to swing me around like a shield in front of him as we backed up down the trail. He was saying "what do we do? What do we do!"

I looked up the hill and saw the bear peeking over a log just like this [Peep]. I don't know who was more scared, the bear or my co-worker. Although I was pretty pissed at my co-worker for using me as a shield.

A few days later I was walking from my park service house to my office when I heard a little rustle in the trees left of the path about 10 yards up. Then I saw a bear cub come out of the trees, walk up to the edge of the road, stand on his hind legs and look both ways before he crossed. Momma bear was on the right side of the road about 15 yards up and was too busy eating something to notice me thank God. But she sure did teach that cub how to cross a street safely!

In one of my Army stints back in the late 80s I was stationed on a remote site in the some mountains in Germany. The nearbye town was small but had a couple bars that one could go too in their off time. There was a Castle that overlook the town that was surrounded by forests to sides not overlooking the villiage. If you did not drive into town you would walk through the forest and down some stone steps down to town by the castle. I remember walking through that forest on late evening and I could hear a shuffling in a bush. As I got closer I got an a strange feeling like something was wrong. I could hear a growling soon afterwards and could see what appeared to be a hairy small human shape with red glowing eyes. Needless to say I ran away as fast I could. Never saw this thing again. Well a few months back I watched a movie called don't be afraid of the dark, the creatures in that movie were similar to what I saw. The movie was lame but I got goosebumbs when i saw those little elves.

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Originally Posted by aahorn

me and 3 friends were camping on my buddies parent's large property in Monument we were like 12. we woke up in the middle of the night and heard what we thought was bear growls close to the tent. We heard it several times and were pretty shook up. so we decided to get armed. the person closest to the enterance with bear mace, the other three had axe, hatchet, and knife... we fall back asleep clutching our arms and wake up a while because a wild kitty jumped in through the enterance onto the guy with bear mace causing him to freak out a begin spraying the bear mace.

yea it sucked [ROFL1] luckily most of the spray went outside

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this story is going to make me sound like a little girl... but as young kids my brother and I were doing the same thing once, and all of a sudden we start hearing something hit the outside of the tent.. we must have been 9 and 7 max... we start freaking out,, and it continues.. me being the oldest kid is going to try to save my little brother and I decide im going to make a run for the house..

as soon as I jumped out of the tent.... my fuckin dad grabs me and scares the living shit out of me.... my brother and I were crying and everything lol... kinda funny now, but shit I hated him for that for awhile lol

I'll add another keeping with the camping theme that's going. Do people count as animals? I suppose sometimes they do so I'll include it here...

I when I was a teenager I was camping with my girlfriend (now my wife) deep in the national forest north of Lake George, CO. We were in the tent late that night and we heard someone coming down the trail making a bunch of noise. This individual was walking in a way that made him sound drunk. I had no gun but grabbed my knife. The footsteps stopped right outside our tent and I was sure the zipper was going to start un-zipping any second. Then the footsteps started walking again off into the forest until we couldn't hear them anymore.

What worried me was that on previous camping trips in this same area with the bros, self proclaimed miners had come out of the woodwork late at night a number of times and invited themselves to sit around the fire with us. These guys were dirty enough and crazy enough that we thought for sure they were legit mountain men. So I thought the guy outside our tent on the night I described above could have been one of these crazy guys and that had me very concerned since I had my girl with me. Luckily it ended up fine.

That night I came to a very scary realization. Any one of the many nights we spent out there as highschoolers in the forest we could have easily become "missing persons" since we didn't have any self defense tools with us.

I worked for the forest service in the creede area we where marking new beetle kill zones. I was walking up this ridge about ready to crest it and i spooked a herd of elk that where bedded down there was probably 20 or so cows they exploded off the ground all around me scared the crap out of me. and than in the same area a couple days later i walk thru a bunch of willows right next to a mama moose and her calf. she looked at me put back her ears i backed away slowly just waiting for her to charge. never had a an encounter with a predator though.

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Originally Posted by DFBrews

and than in the same area a couple days later i walk thru a bunch of willows right next to a mama moose and her calf. she looked at me put back her ears i backed away slowly just waiting for her to charge.

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I think a mama moose is about the LAST thing I would want to run into...scary.

someone better have a sasquatch story..

This happened like a few months ago. I was driving westbound on 285, and I passed C470 and was like 300 feet from the Morrison exit. It was late at night, and I saw what I immediately thought was a dog jump out in the road in front of. I looked closer, and it was a mountain lion! It darted across the road, effortlessly leaped over the median, and it "vanished into the night". I was somewhat close to hitting it, but it had to be running at least 20 mph.

My elk encounter in Estes Park a couple years ago. Made my ass pucker tighter. I just stood quietly with my vid camera on the tripod, and stayed on the opposite side of the guardrail. When he crossed over, so did I, very carefully.



Grandson took this with his phone, you can just see me and my tripod on the far right edge. Too damn close! But when I went up to the road with my camera, they were all over on the other side. By the time I got setup, they had come over and all around me. So, I just stood still.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...ations/249.jpg