I am currently reading this book about the five large carnivores of Scandinavia and I am absolutely humbled, both by finding out how little I knew about them, what prejudice I had against them and how people that live in close proximity to them can both love, respect and be angry with them at the same time. I am reading the original release in Swedish.
- What have you encountered in the wild?
- When, where, how?
- What were your initial thoughts, feelings and reactions (physical, psychological, etc.)?
- What do think of them in general? <— this last question applies to everybody, regardless of whether you have seen or met one of these large carnivores or not.
Personally, without having met any one of them, I am humbled, scared, amazed and intrigued by them. I feel for those whose - for instance - livestock are threatened by them, especially if it directly damages business. I also strongly believe that the matter should not be dumbed down to the dichotmy of “ignore those that suffer from them” or “eradicate them”. We are far too intelligent and developed a race to degrade ourselves so.
Several black bear sightings (and one very close encounter) at a recent vacation in Tennessee
I live in the US. I’ve seen black bears in the wild a couple of times, and personally I don’t have a lot of actual fear when it comes to them. I respect that they’re totally capable of hurting me severely, but also I know they are mostly harmless to humans and just want to be left alone. Grizzly bears scare me a lot. I’ve not seen one yet but I’ve been near them a couple times. They are far more likely to be aggressive. Realistically though, for us, carnivores aren’t the biggest concern most of the time. Bison, mooses, and even deer can be deadly.
Lions in africa and other big cats freaks me out a lot. Luckily we don’t have many big cats here and the ones we do have make themselves very scarce.
Australia has none except crocodiles, I have seen crocs in the wild
I saw black bears in Canada from the car
I’m glad the animal we had that was hippo-like in behaviour - a dangerous herbivore - is extinct. We have the old bunyip stories telling us to keep out of swampy parts of rivers.
I was quite near a black bear once but with a group of people so I felt pretty secure. It actually followed us for like a mile walking late at night, middle of winter along a mountain road. Technically I don’t know it was a black bear because we didn’t see it, but we heard it keeping pace in the darkness maybe fifty feet away and it’s the only thing (other than Bigfoot) that checks all the boxes for that behavior. A deer wouldn’t be doing that and if it had been a mountain lion we wouldn’t have heard it.
I’ve seen brown bears from a distance and from inside a car. I’ve been close to coyotes, swam near sharks, always with people or with some kind of barrier.
The one that freaked me out was different. I was living in California and regularly hiked the nearby trails, my favorite being up Cerro San Luis. One day I decided I wanted to watch the sunset from the peak so I grabbed my water bottle and walking stick (tall and pointy) and set out in the evening. It was gorgeous! Fog rolled in right as the horizon lit up all shades of red, really breathtaking. I watched until it got dark and that’s when I realized I had neglected to bring a light of any kind. (This would have been ~2012. Whatever phone I had was not particularly useful for illumination.) The night was moonless, and the trail was now blanketed in thick fog.
I got lost.
I took the wrong turn at a fork and didn’t realize until I was clear under the fog a mile or two the wrong direction. While contemplating my situation I happened to glance a dark shape just barely silhouetted against the clouds. Something on four legs that watched me for a few moments then silently melted away. In that moment I remembered seeing “mountain lion sighting” warning signs at the trailhead earlier that month and felt an intense, primal sensation I’ve not experienced before or since. Being stalked, being hunted, in such a precarious position… I picked up a large stone and waited in silence for at least ten minutes, grateful the whole time that I always hiked with my stick, before I decided it was safe to pick my way back up to where I got turned around. Slowly, cautiously, nauseous from the adrenaline, until on the main trail I ran into a family of four merrily returning from the top with headlamps and I rather sheepishly asked to join them. (They were nice about it). I don’t night-hike solo anymore.
In the light of a new day I went back and looked around and I’m pretty sure what I saw was a large bobcat rather than a mountain lion, which would have still been worrying given the circumstance of being nearly blind, so I wasn’t in as much mortal danger as I felt. In the moment I’m not sure if “afraid” is the right word. Yes there was fear but it was tempered by other instincts. I was prepared to fight that animal with a rock and a pointy stick just like our distant ancestors would have, and everything in my mind and body was shifted into that very specific gear. No coherent “I could die here” thoughts or anything like that.
What do you think of them in general?
I’m glad they’re out there. Even if I had been attacked I wouldn’t bear them any ill will, that’s just carnivores being carnivores. I was more careful after that to avoid a similar situation but I don’t want wild spaces to lose their large predators. It’s pretty easy to be safe and share the planet.
I’ve been almost killed by a grizzly, twice, when I used to live on the eastern slopes of the rockies in Alberta. Climate change and human activity are making it hard for the bears and they are hungry as fuck in those parts.
One time when I was like 6 years old camping with my parents, I went on a walk to the river and got charged from behind a bush, but it didn’t seem hellbent on killing me
Another time I was hiking up a fire cutblock and my buddy and I thought we saw three hikers maybe like 3km uphill from us. Eventually it was obvious is was a mom and cubs, and they were chasing at us full speed (we were upwind from them). If we were a little further into the hike, I think one of us wouldn’t have made it back to the truck in time.
I’ve also been trapped by a moose in my parents garage for 6 hours, once
I still would rather run into either these animals out in the sticks than random humans. I’ve encountered some really sketchy people in my time spent in the woods. Seems to be getting worse too. I’m not a gun person, but that’s why I have a gun.
I have traveled a little bit.
Larger predators: Grizzly bears, black bears, cougers, jaguars, lynx, alligators, crocodiles, and a few different species of sharks.
Mid sized predator like coyotes, foxes, badgers, and even a wolverines I run across more frequently.
I’ve run into coyotes, if that counts. You hear them constantly, but they’re shy, so when you do see them up close it’s kinda cool. When it’s happened with other people they’ve been freaked out, but coyotes just don’t attack adult humans. They’re really wired to eat ground squirrels (aka “gophers”) and rabbits; small things.
I’ve been through grizzly bear habitat, but I never had one show itself. If it did, I’d probably just mind my business and give it a wide berth. I did know a guy who got eaten, but that’s so rare it doesn’t really change my mind. They’re alright.
Honourable mention for moose, which are pretty aggressive, are fucking huge and do scare me. Like, I’m still fine with them as a concept, and seeing a wild animal that big is amazing if you’re in a safe place, but if something’s going to happen to me, it’s either a human or a moose.
I’d also be more worried about crossing paths with a moose than any predator (other than a polar bear), they’ll stomp you to death for existing too close and can’t be reasoned with.
The fog hung low across the damp pine needles of the Cascades as dusk settled, turning the dense timber into an endless sea of twilight shadows. I had pulled over off the logging road to stretch my legs, the cold autumn air biting at my jacket, with nothing breaking the silence except the distant drip of moisture falling from the canopy.
Then the forest went dead quiet. No birds, no rustling squirrels, just a heavy, sudden pressure in the air that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
A sharp, wooden crack echoed from forty yards up the ridge—the sound of a thick branch snapping with unnatural force. I froze, my breath catching in my throat as I scanned the thicket of Douglas firs. At first, I thought it was a downed tree or a black bear, but then the dark mass stood up.
It rose on two legs, unfolding to a height that made the surrounding saplings look small. It had to be at least eight feet tall, broad-shouldered enough to block out the remaining daylight behind it, and covered in matted, dark reddish-brown fur. It didn’t move with the awkwardness of a human in a suit or the sway of a bear. It moved with fluid, massive power, turning its entire upper torso to face me.
For five endless seconds, we locked eyes. Its face was heavily lined and leathery beneath a sloped brow, with eyes that caught the dim light like obsidian. There was no growl, no aggressive chest-beating—just an overwhelming, intelligent stillness that filled the woods.
It took one slow, deliberate step backward, merging seamlessly into the deep shadows of the brush. A second later, the brush swayed, and it was gone, leaving only the faint, pungent scent of wet earth and copper in the air. I stood frozen in the stillness, listening to my own heart hammering against my ribs, knowing the woods would never look the same again.
Two different days bow hunting turkeys, I ran into black bears. The first one was a younger one, I was heading back to camp, not being particularly observant and then sensed something, looked up and a mid size black bear was about 10-15 yards from me. We both seemed to not notice each other, I just froze and watched him, it started to sniff the air, I began yelling at it and it didn’t seem to care. I slowly started to walk away keeping faced toward it, it still seemed pretty interested in me and started to walk towards me. I nocked an arrow and was ready to shoot it, I didn’t want to but at that moment I had no other option, didn’t have bear spray me. Slowly bent down and pick up a broken pine branch and threw it at it, just short of it and that frighten it enough to take off. A few days later again hiking around looking for turkey, off in the distance I could see something walking through dense brush, watched it for a while until I realized it was another black bear, this one much larger than the other. It didn’t realize I was there, so I screamed a deep loud growl as loud as I could, frightening it, it took off on a dead sprint perpendicular to me, and watched it take off and could hear it for awhile crashing through the brush. I’ve crossed Mexican gray wolves, coyotes, and bobcats several times while outdoors hunting.
I love it all, I have a deep respect for nature and the animals out there.
Yeah. A pig. A feral boar that weighed in at nearly 700 pounds.
When I was 7 my parents took me to Sea World (it was a long time ago and I was too young to recognize the cruelty of their enclosures). My dad told them it was my birthday and they picked me to be the kid that participates in one of the shows. The whales were rebelling though (obvious why now), and they ended up canceling the show. The trainer held me back though and let me go in the back with him to their home pool.
There was a fat yellow line about 15 feet from the perimeter of the pool and I asked why. The trainer told me to take a step over the line. I did and within 2 seconds an adult male orca crested his eye above the water to look at me, just stationary in the water. It was the most potent flight or fight response in my life and I just froze. Those things weigh 5 tons and can move at 35mph and you can see their intelligence in their eyes.
That quickly ended my fascination with whales as a kid.At Sequoya National park the bears get crazy close. I was laying half outside my tent stargazing with binoculars and a bear walked through my camp. He didn’t get close enough to touch, but we could have shaken paws.
On the beach I found mountain lion tracks once. This was weird because I was alone and the beach was a 2 mile hike from the parking lot.
Norwegian here. Met quite a few elk on my hikes, once a wolf passed the road some ten metres in front of me an early morning, a brown bears glimpsed far away once or twice -never afraid, always in awe. But also always with respect, knowing full well what they do.
Thanks for the book tip!
Several big ass fat black bears in my yard, including one charging straight at me because my neighbors dog was chasing it, thankfully they’re scared of literally everything and it’s never been an issue. Other than that maybe a large bobcat
Never.
Seriously lucky to live in Australia, rather than growing up somewhere dangerous.
EDIT: /s
But I heard drop bears were a huge danger.
Huge danger, small carnivore. 🐨
Just don’t walk under trees, and you’ll be right.
Sarcasm? Australia is known for having many dangerous/deadly animals.
Yes, you’re right, that was half joking. Have added in the /s.
Australia does not have large carnivores, but you still need to be careful in the bush or outback.
General guideline is, look where you step and don’t put your hand somewhere that you can’t see(under logs, in rusted cars etc.)
The actual top animal dangers in Aus are bees, snakes, spiders, according to this data(2021-2022).
https://aussieanimals.com/conflicts/venomous-creatures-australia/
The two on that list to know, if you plan to visit Australian beaches, is Blue Ring Octopus [ 12 to 20 cm (5 to 8 in) ] and Cone Shell [ 1.3 cm to 21.6 cm ].
They can catch out unaware tourists, who pick them up because they look quite beautiful.
As well as the above two guidelines, another one is to keep hands off any wildlife at the bush or beach.
Thanks for the response and for the info. I’d love to visit Australia some day for more than a couple reasons! We have some friends there being only one of them.
Australians themselves don’t seemed bothered by any of it, except the bush flies, though.
There are so few dangerous animals. Up north there are crocodiles, ask a tropical Aussie how to avoid those.
On the coast there’s the blue ring octopus so we’re taught to not pick up small octopuses, and cone shell molluscs so we wear shoes when walking on seaside rocks and rock pools. There are two dangerous spiders, redbacks are the same as black widows, Sydney funnel-webs weave a distinctive web, you mostly avoid those by not sticking your fingers into finger sized holes,
There are snakes that mostly flee from you. Wait a few metres away from the snake and wait for it to move. Almost all snake bite victims in Australia are snake handlers and wildlife fans.
Our one dangerous bird (cassowary) is only dangerous if cornered and attacked
Sure. That is largely based on what you’re used to. Africans also have tons of mostly deadly snakes. None of them seem concerned talking to me about it, despite losing a dog every year or two to venomous snakes.
And yet kinda lacking in large carnivores, I think. They have Crocodiles? I can’t think of anything else.
Sharks. Whites and bulls.
Yeah, large carnivores not so much. Apparently dingos and tasmanian devils are the closest in that department. I’ve just always thought of Australia as a place of greatest concern in terms of animals due to the many deadly snakes and spiders they have.
That totally tracks. It definitely has plenty of dangerous wildlife. They have plenty of problematic animals that will fuck you up. Just not a ton of large carnivores.
The big predators live in the water.
