Let's get down to business (tile, eat, dryer)

[alaskaboy]

About two years ago a large moose decided to try and attack my German Sheppard who was in her kennel. The moose was so angry because my dog was barking at her she decided to ram the kennel and try and tear it down. I heard the racket and grabbed a large metal trash can and tossed it at the moose. The moose persisted to continue to stomp and ram the side of our dog's kennel. Our then 13 year old female Sheppard was nose to nose snapping at the large moose through her kennel, which by now had one panel almost flattened and on top of her. I was very close to getting my gun at this point and shooting this moose as I seriously thought it was going to kill my dog. I decided to try one more large trash can from the deck above. This time it bounced off the moose's head and it decided to leave, but not before a few snorts and angry looks our way.

I've also had several bear encounters over the years, but never anything aggressive. They just look and usually walk away or ignore me.

[karfar]

I just had an encounter w/a tall german shepard the other night. I was trying to get to the front door of someone's house, the dog kept barking, growling, guarding the front door. It was on a leash but there was no way I could've gotten to that front door w/out a large chunk of my ass disappearing, so I chose to leave.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Sorry guys, and gals, I have several good stories about my German Shepards, but, at least from my perspective, they are not very wild. Unfortunately, I have no real tense animal encounters to speak of while in Alaska, but......W. Africa, SE Asia, and C. and S. America have given me a dirth of the aforementioned "critter tales"

[rotorhead]

When I was working at Providence Hospital in Anchorage, I got a call about two AM from our flight dispatcher, "go check out the helipad, there's a moose wandering around the helicopter" (they've got a camera up there).

I rub my eyes for a while, trying to wake up completely (always hated working night shifts) and then the thought strikes me...the helipad is on the third floor of the parking garage, what the heck is a moose doing up there in the middle of the night?

By the time I get outside he's already wandered right back down to the ground floor and is busy mutilating the landscaping like nothing happened. I took this shot leaning over the railing from the first floor.



Who knows, maybe he just wanted to see what it was that was always making all the noise up there.

[alaskaboy]

You know moose in general have always cracked me up. They are kind of dorky, goofy and lets be honest, dumb looking creatures. But, they do demand and deserve some respect. I think in general people often underestimate the moose. They are strong willed, stubborn creatures and when they get mad, they get real mad! Not to mention they are as big as a small building. Nothing more dangerous or scary then being in close vicinity of a pissed off moose aside from perhaps a pissed off grizzly.

[Blueberry]

My most unsettling encounters with wildlife occurred with bears I never even saw. The first happened when I was living in suburbia. The backyard merged with the wilderness of a State park. One morning at about 5:30 while it was still dark, I heard a noise outside. Going to the window, I couldn't see a thing, but the noise had sounded like it came from a large creature. The dogs next door were going nuts in their outdoor kennel.

Since my husband was dinkin' around outside near the back of the house, I thought it was prudent to tell him what I'd heard and caution him to be careful. He hadn't heard a thing but had wondered what got the dogs all excited. Nothing came of the incident, so we promptly forgot all about it until a couple of weeks later. The neighbor came over and said to my husband, "come see what I found in my backyard." About 40-50 feet behind his house was a moose carcass, recently killed, with definite signs of predation and scavenging.

Hubby remembered the morning I had heard "something." The neighbor remembered his dogs going nuts but couldn't discover what had set them off. We all figured I had heard a bear taking down the moose. What was really unsettling, though, was knowing that a bear was munching a moose only yards away from our homes, probably for days, and we didn't know a thing about it! The bear had been shielded from view by a thick canopy of devil's club, while we were blindly going about our business on a daily basis, usually with a toddler in tow. (There was a reason I always carried a can of pepper spray when I was outside!)

The second incident occurred in the same neighborhood. Late one night, nearing midnight, I was out riding my bike around the neighborhood. Since we had lots of hills I didn't feel like battling, I did a continuous loop near the house so the hills were taken in small doses. After riding for nearly an hour and doing this loop quite a number of times, a car passed me and went to the end of the cul-de-sac, turned around, came back, and stopped near me. The conversation went something like this: "Did you know there is a bear at the end of the street?" "No! I've been going up and down the street, and I haven't seen a thing. What kind of bear is it?" "It's a brown bear. Looks pretty big." "Thanks, I'll keep my eyes open." "Well, we thought you'd like to know there's a bear down there." "Thanks again! Have a good evening."

Since the bear apparently hadn't worried about me before, I continued on my way. Halfway to the end of the street, I had second thoughts. How long had the bear been down there? What if it just arrived? Would I look threatening coming toward it fairly quickly? Would I look like prey, especially as I turned away and headed away from it? Realizing that most of my neighbors were probably in bed, and knowing that my family was, I quickly decided cowardice was the better part of valor, so I turned around, shot up my driveway and into the garage!

We lived in that neighborhood five years. We knew bears were common, and we also knew there was a moose path not far from the house, but hidden from sight. No one in my family ever once saw either a bear or a moose although we knew they were around! We did see wolves quite frequently, though. One night when I was driving home after being out, I encountered two wolves at the entrance to my subdivision. I slowed the car to a snail's pace, and one of the wolves sauntered over and looked in the window on the driver's side!

[Blueberry]

We've had quite a few up close and personal encounters with wildlife, but nothing to get really excited about. One time after an evening ski outing, the family bailed into the camper to change clothes and have a mug of cocoa. While we were resting and enjoying the evening, we started seeing all kinds of people walk between our vehicles with camera lights flashing. Looking up front, we saw two moose munching leaves off a tree right in front of my car which was parked next to the camper. Oh great! How long are the moose going to put up with that?! We quickly cleaned up and slid out of the camper and up to the doors of our respective vehicles, keeping a close eye on the moose. After quickly strapping dd in her car seat, I got behind the wheel of my car. By this time, both moose were getting very annoyed, and I had visions of one or both taking his frustrations out on my car. I really envied dh in his big truck! We very slowly backed out and got out of dodge before we became casualties of other people's ignorance.

We often saw moose while were were out skiing. One day, we stopped to watch a moose that was resting a few yards off the trail. Our daughter was just a wee little thing, and was usually towed behind her father in a sled. When we stopped to watch the moose, she was really excited and climbed out of the sled and started marching straight toward the moose so she could pet it! She was highly indignant when she was promptly scooped up!!! After that, we stopped MUCH farther away if we wanted to watch wildlife!

Our funniest (and probably the scariest) Alaskan wildlife encounter actually happened to my sister-in-law. She and her family had come to Alalska for the first time to join my family on our annual wilderness rafting/camping/fishing trip. One morning after breakfast, I was strolling along the beach and noticed s-i-l heading the opposite direction with a roll of TP in her hand. Taking note of where she disappeared into the bush, I went on my merry way. A couple of minutes later, I turned around and saw a brown bear ambling along the beach toward our camp, so I sounded the alarm. Well, that bear must have seen us, too, because he veered off the beach--into the bushes--straight toward s-i-l!

When I sounded the alarm, everyone went into action. No one else knew s-i-l was down by the bear, so I'm screaming that info at the top of my lungs. I was hoping s-i-l would hear me and be warned she was about to get a visitor. I was also cautioning the guys with the firearms not to get itchy fingers. It was a tense few minutes not knowing what was going on down there, but we weren't going to panic and cause the bear to get nervous. Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief when s-i-l emerged from the bushes! Because of the water's noise, she hadn't heard me shouting, but she saw the bear before it noticed her so she started talking to it and moving out of it's path. She did admit, though, to abandoning environmental, aesthetic, and modesty concerns and hightailing it out of there with "stuff" exposed (in more ways than one!)!

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by Blueberry

My most unsettling encounters with wildlife occurred with bears I never even saw.

I also had an encounter with a bear I never saw. I was fishing on the Little Su for silvers. I had already caught two and was standing in the middle of the river fishing for my third. I put the two I had caught in my backpack after I bled and gutted them, next to my 12 gauge shotgun (loaded for bear) on the bank of the river.

After a few minutes of fishing I went back to the bank to rebait my spin-n-glow when I noticed that my backpack was missing. I put my rod and reel down, picked up my shotgun, and began looking for my backpack.

After about 15 minutes of searching the area, I found my backpack. It was ripped up pretty good and my two silvers were missing. It must have been a Ninja bear, because I didn't hear or see anything.

[karfar]

Ok, what is my problem, how are you guys quoting just parts of other people's previous posts? I either have to quote the whole thing or it doesn't work...I'm trying to cut & paste, copy, nothing.

[akck]

Originally Posted by karfar

Ok, what is my problem, how are you guys quoting just parts of other people's previous posts?

Just quote the whole thing and delete the parts you don't want. Just be sure to leave the bracket parts at the beginning and end. That is the bracketsthat have the word quote in them. Preview it to make sure it worked.