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Animal Encounters...

GeoCacheKat

By GeoCacheKat
in General geocaching topics

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GeoCacheKat

+GeoCacheKat

Posted
Posted

I read a non-geocaching story recently about a guy that went out hunting alone, got a huge buck around dusk, managed to get a picture of himself with the prize before packing himself and the buck up to head home. Later, after he got the pics developed, he saw that the flash had captured the image of a mountain lion sniffing around behind him! Close call!

 

It made me wonder about animal encounters people have had on their adventures geocaching. The encounters can be wonderful or scary and the stories can be about wild or domestic animals.

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Totem Clan

+Totem Clan

Posted
Posted

I've seen a lot animals while caching. A few weeks ago there was a bald eagle perch right above one of the caches.

 

The only things that ever gavin any problems were a skunk and a snake.

 

Here's the log about the snake.

 

Great little cache. We found it without too much trouble. The kids loved the cache but loved the racer that lives under the cache even more. They got a kick out off this pint size snake striking the heck out of the stick I was using to move it so I could put the cache back without hurting it. After I put the cache back it crawled right back under. T - TB and the kids trade some toys. SL This is a cache we'll remember for a while. That's one tough little snake.

 

The skunk wasn't at the cache but met us on the way to it. It came charging out of a stump about 5O feet away and stop with a maybe 5 feet of us. I almost shot it thinking it might have rabies because of the way it was acting. Then it ran back to the stump turned around hissed and then acted like it was going to spray. We started back off not knowing what it would do next. Then it turned to the stump and made a quite little sound. Out run 6 little kits. Mama skunk quickly led them away to some tall grass and off deeper in the woods. We went on to the cache. We must have startled her.

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dakboy

+dakboy

Posted
Posted

I read a non-geocaching story recently about a guy that went out hunting alone, got a huge buck around dusk, managed to get a picture of himself with the prize before packing himself and the buck up to head home. Later, after he got the pics developed, he saw that the flash had captured the image of a mountain lion sniffing around behind him! Close call!

Thoroughly debunked.

 

http://www.snopes.com/photos/hunting/stalking.asp

 

Thanks for playing!

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Planet

+Planet

Posted
Posted

Two bears in one day at a geocaching tournament. Close enough!

One mountain lion, but everyone will saybthey don't exist in CT, even after someone hit one with a car last yearDeer, all the time, they are plentiful as rats around here.

Wild turkeys, foxes, bobcats, snapping turtles, snakes, Wolf Spiders, coyotes, beaver......

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lamoracke

+lamoracke

Posted
Posted

remember going to southern central Oregon and was well aware that our going off trail would possibly encounter rattlesnakes, so I had my guard up. Every brush, every rock, I paid attention. When we finally finished Table Rock, and was at the end of the trail almost back to the car, I guess I had left my guard down because within a few feet of me in the middle of the walking trail, one was right in front of me and my teenage daughter had to warn me before I potentially stepped on it.

 

Fraid only semi dangerous animal have come across, minus bug stings, had lots of those.

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hzoi

+hzoi

Posted
Posted

So far, a couple nonvenemous snakes (one big black one at least 6' long calmly slithered right in front of us as we were logging a cache), a couple black widow spiders, and at least one scorpion (looking for a cache and flipped over the wrong rock, then backed away in a hurry). And deer aplenty.

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BAMBOOZLE

+BAMBOOZLE

Posted
Posted

It would be easier to say what we HAVEN'T seen. We have yet to see a bear or Mt. lion/panther ( I'd really just as soon not ). Ones that have gotten our attention were rattlesnakes, cotton-mouths, wild hogs,and a gator bigger than my office.......our favorite thing about caching is what we see on the trail.

What you really need to beware of are INSECTS !!

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neversummer1181

+neversummer1181

Posted
Posted

We've run into all kinds of animals while caching, we even literally ran into a cow coming back from a caching adventure, caused some pretty serious damage to the driver's side front fender on our 4runner, and to the cow. Black cow, two lane highway, open range, night time, husband saw it about two seconds before impact, going about 75, we were very lucky. Saw a Mountain Lion, Badger, Bald Eagle, lots of deer and rabbits, mice and rats, cows, snakes (all non-venomous, lucky once again), giant man eating centipedes and huge ants, lots of hawks and other birds. No bear yet though.

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GeoCacheKat

+GeoCacheKat

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Posted (edited)

That hunter-mountain lion photo is certainly scary, and possible, but fortunately for the hunter, it was faked.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/hunting/stalking.asp

 

Thank you Javelinas for being so polite when pointing out that the story wasn't real. It was pointed out earlier that the story wasn't real, but the person that pointed it out wasn't as nice as you about it. I appreciate your way of doing it. :D

 

Living in Vermont, I have seen a lot of different animals: deer, snakes, moose, wild turkeys and so on. I am looking forward to seeing different wildlife on my adventures.

Edited by GeoCacheKat
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to visit one of the National Parks in Tanzania which had a cache at the entrance to the park. Just before entering the park we saw many zebra, elephant, impala, and giraffe. We had to stop the vehicle in the middle of the road once to wait for a giraffe to get out of the road. I searched a bit for the cache before we went into the park and didn't find it, but I did see a bunch of giant millipedes at GZ (some almost a foot long). After entering the park we saw a lot more of the same animals we'd seen outside the park and also lots of water buffalo, a few hippos, warthog, and lots of strange looking birds. However, the most concerning animals we encountered were a dozen or so tsetse flies that found their way into the vehicle. We stopped again at the entrance to the park and I eventually found the cache while our driver chatted with the people working there. While waiting there I also saw about four elephants cross the road about 200' inside the park and watched a bunch of baboons playing.

 

Locally I've seen a *lot* of deer and wild turkey. Awhile back I dropped off my son at the facility where he has gymnastics lessons then followed a faint trail about 1/4 mile to the location where a new cache had been placed. It was rated 4 star for difficulty, and I could see why when I got to GZ. It was at a spot where a natural creek feeds into a flood control channel and the channel is lined with large rocks. I searched for a bit and didn't have any luck but found a pen on the ground and CITO'd it. On the way back to the gymnastics facility I spotted what appeared to be a small pile of fairly fresh bear scat. Since it was only 150' or so from the gym I took a photo of it, hoping that I might be able to verify it by looking at photos on the net. To show the scale, I dropped the pen that I had CITO'd next to it. After I got home a couple of hours later it hit me. I pulled the pen out of my pocket, and sure enough, I opened it up to discover a log sheet. I had to send the CO a message indicating that I had found the cache but I had the container at home. He disabled it (without explaining way) and I was able to get back there a couple of days later to replace the pen. It was archived shortly after when the CO (who is 12, I believe) discovered that a pen is not very waterproof. I was FTF on it and the log was already damp.

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ktmhz

+ktmhz

Posted
Posted

Today was a good animal day geocaching outside of Tucson. We did a 5/4.5 cache that was at the top of a peak outside of town, and saw a pair of hawks + nest in the top of a saguaro. On the way down, we saw 3 deer take off, and a bit later, we saw a deer that was not doing any taking off. He was in bone form, scattered over a 100 foot patch of hillside!

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Totem Clan

+Totem Clan

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Posted

Had thought about this one till just now.

 

...... While we were looking for this one we heard hoofbeats and looked out in to the pasture. There were 3 beautiful horses running full gallop right toward us. It was such a powerful sight to see them running like that, mane and tail streaming behind them. They came to the fence so the kids pulled some grass and fed them. ......

 

That was at the end of a long day of caching and an event. The sun was starting to set as we hunted for this cache.

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted

Had thought about this one till just now.

 

...... While we were looking for this one we heard hoofbeats and looked out in to the pasture. There were 3 beautiful horses running full gallop right toward us. It was such a powerful sight to see them running like that, mane and tail streaming behind them. They came to the fence so the kids pulled some grass and fed them. ......

 

That was at the end of a long day of caching and an event. The sun was starting to set as we hunted for this cache.

 

There's a fairly large horse pasture about a mile from where live that's not really big by some western standards but plenty large enough for horses to run around at a full gallop (as they often do). It's surrounded by a chained link fence but even that doesn't detract from the view of horses frolicking in the field. There used to be a cache located at a pull-off at a spot that offered a nice view of the horses (the cache was placed for an event but was archived about 9 months after because the CO claimed that it had served it's purpose). I actually have a cache across the road (and down a bit from the other cache) that doesn't have quite the view of the horse pasture but a very good view (and a sometimes spectacular if found around dusk) in the other direction. I've actually had a couple of people complain about the cache because the smell. Yes, it sometimes smells "like a farm", but that's because there is a working horse farm across the road.

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CanadianRockies

+CanadianRockies

Posted
Posted

What you really need to beware of are INSECTS !!

Yes, indeed. In the U.S. alone, bees kill about 50 people each year. That's probably five times as many deaths as are caused by mountain lions, bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, and alligators combined. Also beware of deer, which kill over 100 Americans each year when they are hit by vehicles. Dogs kill about 30 or so.

 

It could be argued that another insect is the world's deadliest animal: the mosquito. Technically, though, they are merely transportation vehicles for parasites, which transmit the malaria disease.

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted

What you really need to beware of are INSECTS !!

Yes, indeed. In the U.S. alone, bees kill about 50 people each year. That's probably five times as many deaths as are caused by mountain lions, bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, and alligators combined. Also beware of deer, which kill over 100 Americans each year when they are hit by vehicles. Dogs kill about 30 or so.

 

So what you're saying is that all those people in another thread about "carrying protection" that are describing the type of firearm they're carrying while geocaching, would probably be safer if they carried a fly swatter?

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GeoCacheKat

+GeoCacheKat

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Posted

A couple years ago my wife and I were nearing Lake Pleasant Plane Crash cache when we spooked some javelina.

 

Wow. Javelina aren't in the pig family, but they can be just as aggresive as wild boar (I was curious and looked it up). Rather scary!

 

We had spotted the fawn's mom on the way in so knew where she was.

 

Such a beautiful fawn! What a wonderful find!

 

So what you're saying is that all those people in another thread about "carrying protection" that are describing the type of firearm they're carrying while geocaching, would probably be safer if they carried a fly swatter?

 

A gun on one hip, and a can of Raid on the other! :lol:

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