I’ve had multiple encounters with bears, cougars, alligators, and meth heads.

The closets I came to dying was being chased around my car for 30m by a mother black bear after I disturbed her hiding in a basement via coal flue. Lost my keys and had to wait for a park ranger to come save me.

Around day four of a week-long backpacking trip just east of Yosemite, I encountered a bear one morning on my way to do my business. I turned a corner around a large boulder and there he was, was sunning himself on the trail. When he saw me he slowly got up and wandered back into the trees. That simple description left out the few seconds of sheer panic I experienced realizing that the bear could, if it wanted to, cover the distance between us before I could turn around and take three steps. There was nothing but flat, open ground between us and that is what was most frightening.

I’ve never seen one but I’m pretty sure I’ve been stalked by a puma on more than one occasion. The silence is the most unnerving part. Just dead silence. The birds the squirrels, all of them suddenly stop yapping. Maybe you hear some snapping in the trees. Not a lot. Maybe one twig. And then you leave the area and thank whatever god you worship that attacks are really rare. If the cat wanted you the cat would have you.

I have seen coyotes, and they’re not scary in the slightest unless you have a smaller animal with you. Coyotes are scrawny little bastsrds but they’re devious. I have heard stories about a lone coyote “playing” with a dog, and then luring said dog into the woods where it is then set upon by the pack. Probably just folklore. What’s not folklore is that they’ll absolutely eat your pets and livestock if you give them a chance. They are, in many situations, pests.

I’ve not met a bear but I’m not looking forward to it.

A shark. Maybe 7~8 foot long but not thick like a tiger or anything truly scary. Still scared tf out of me so I kinda froze in place ready to fight but it turned away about a foot or two away from me, and disappeared and I rushed back on the boat. My heart was racing hard.

When i was a kid I lived in the mountains of new mexico, and my dad in his infinite wisdom thought he’d surprise my mom and i by buying me a gokart. There were horse trails behind the house that lead into forest and I’d sometimes take it out over those trails as a kid unsupervised.

There was a point where I was going down one of these and something flashed in front of me and my cart hit the back end of something brown. A small, probably young mountain lion’s ass.

It made a pained hissy growly noise and took off running. I immediately turned around and sped home as fast as i could. Almost pissed myself. even though it was obviously small and not coming after me after I hit it, there was an innate fear that this thing could fucking murder me. It was surprising how much scarier the things are when there is no zoo enclosure glass separating you.

I was walking through some forest in Costa Rica to go from my car to the beach. Halfway through I look up to see an adult crocodile about 50 yards away from me.

I was pretty scared because this was a small stretch of forest and didn’t expect it. Once I go to the beach I turned my chair to make sure a croc didn’t want to eat me or go to the shore of the beach. I later found out crocodiles are really slow. If it was an alligator I might have been toast. I don’t believe Costa Rica has native alligators though.

I once walked up on a sow Grizzly bear and her young adult cub while walking my reactive to everything puppy in the woods. We were alone because anything and everything would set her off and she would scream and carry on, and was upsetting my other dog, who I had, in part, to scare bears.

They gave 0 shits about me, and the puppy didn’t notice them, despite being uncomfortably close, thank God.

My initial thought was ‘oh shit’ followed by ‘yeah, I won’t confuse them with black bears’. (Black bears can sometimes be brown, and I had always wondered how I could tell the difference between a brown bear, and a brown black-bear. The answer is: the desire to poop your pants is much greater with brown than black. Black bears, whole they technically kill more people, don’t instigate the same fear response.

I still hike the same hikes, I just double up on deterrant methods, always go with a buddy, and keep my dogs leashed if there is bear activity. (Unleashed dogs on hikes where I live is a cultural norm) Everything has risk, and I live here because I love nature.

I’ve seen bears out in the woods, and walking down the road in front of my house. Also foxes, although they aren’t big. They were chill, so I was chill. Obviously not interested in anything I was doing.

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.

Nah but the next backyard over has been the venue for a spirited yipfest by a pack of coyotes. A few times over the years. I love it every time, even the one morning they woke me up early, it was so awesome that I didn’t mind.

Quite a few actually. Alligators and sharks mostly. Give them space and they usually will leave you alone. Life is risk. 🤷‍♂️

only a coyote, i thought it was a husky one time, but it was actually a coyote casually walking pass me.

I saw eight bears on Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway back in the nineties: a mother and six cubs on one day, and an adult on its own on another. Those fuckers are big.

More recently I was on a coach from Vilnius to Warsaw and saw loads of wolves. Those fuckers are big.

For both occasions I felt something like a distant, muted, primal fear and I was very grateful to be inside a vehicle.

Not a carnivore, but a few years ago I was hiking alone in northern Norway and I came across a small group of reindeer who obviously took a liking to me and followed me for about two hours, very close. They were big enough to do some damage but I didn’t feel even slightly threatened by them, nor them by me, apparently. Those fuckers stink.

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.

Bears, mountain lions, and coyotes. I’ve not seen a mountain lion with my naked eye yet though. They are all around the area so kind of unavoidable, even if you don’t see them you will find their poop, or with coyotes you hear them at night regularly. I’m cautious around all wild animals but not really afraid of them, the odds of being attacked are very slim. I think they should be left alone to do their thing, but I will make noise if necessary to scare them away. One annoying thing is having to take precautions with food when out in the wilderness since bears can be an issue, especially in a group it can be tough to deal with for a number of reasons.