During my run today I saw 29 deer running around the hills and forests of Henndorf, and as it is when you are running on your own, I got to thinking about wild encounters (on a map) and how many I have had!
It all started in 1990 when I was a fresh Oler in South Africa, and running for the first time on a map called Grabouw close to Cape Town. Camped around one of the controls was a troop of baboons (I cannot remember how many), but I went in there and stamped.
Around 1992 I moved to Johannesburg and ran on a map called (I think - Nick can you help here?) Smilling Thru. In the event instructions it said to watch out for wild animals. They weren't joking, on the way to one control I passed through an entire herd of wild antelop (Zebra, Gnu, Springbok etc) and standing close to one of the controls was a group of Giraffe - really - not a joke!
During 1994, I went to USA where I visited the Glacier National Park in Montana (I hope :) ). And although this isn't an orienteering story I came face to face with a brown bear during a hike (honestly he wasn't more than 5 m away) - and thinking about it - this was my most dangerous encounter.
In 1997, my first year to Sweden, I was doing the 5 days in Umea thru the clinics. On day two we found out that they almost cancelled day 1 due to the huge bear that ran through the start area less than 1 hour before the first start - phew!
1999 saw my first visit to Hungary and also my first (of many) encounters with a boar during a relay training - not to be forgotten in a hurry!
Of course I wouldn't be an OLer if I didn't mention 2001 Finland where I saw my first (and to date only two) Elk on a training map close to Oriveso - mother and baby I think!
Of course I have seen copious amount of other small forest wild life over the years, including foxes on Richmond common, snakes on table mountain, Otters in Knysna, during training runs I mean!
So what other close encounters are out there, what is your most interesting "Wild Thing" story - I'm sure it would be interesting to hear it, if you don't mind sharing it :)
I've seen several black bears while out in the forest running. The biggest/fattest one I have ever seen was in our camp in Tahoe eating *my* breakfast food. We tried to scare it away, but it went up the nearest tree. We had to back off to give it enough space to come back down and leave.
In Wyoming, I ran into a female moose (what you call an elk) on one of the courses. I have also seen a couple of elk (our version) and a pronghorn antelope while spectating.
My favorite encounter was in Tahoe. I was way off in a part of the map where "no man had gone before" (because I suck) and spooked a bobcat out of the brush.
The strangest/most dangerous animals I have run into are of the homo sapien variety. In Burton Creek, an angry home owner prevented me from punching the last control. While out mapping, I saw a group of kids beating on each other ala Fight Club. Finally there was the night-o in Alicante, Spain, that went near the gay cruising area...
At a local event in Bendigo I was crashing through the eucalypt and wattle forest (map Axedale) when I came face to face (well a metre or two) with a deer. It was taller than me. I'm not sure who was the most startled.
I know, I know, deer aren't native to Australia. But there was a deer farm nearby. Clearly the fences weren't up to scratch. We normally see lots of wallabies, kangaroos.
aside from the usual wallabies and kangaroos-
a goanna, a stag, many echidnas, a wombat, possums, emus, a herd of cattle, sheep.
not very exciting.
I've only ever seen a snake whilst on a run once ( either a brown or a hoop), on a training session at Wilson's Prom with Blairtrewin, Keely, and Scammell.
Where is James with his story of the brumby attack?
I got attacked by a captive swan once, around a duck pond. thats an interesting once.
I haven't seen one, but Swampfox is always warning us of the attack badgers in Wyoming. ;-)
I saw a Lynx running straight at me while I was in the middle of taking a dump in Sweden once. It noticed me about 10m before it got to me, I was starting to panic….
Mountain lion on Mount Laguna map in southern California, quite a few years ago.
Javelinas at night during Arizona rogaine near Mexican border.
I saw an elk towards the end of a goat event in Alberta once (at William A Switzer Provincial Park). As I hadn't seen anyone for over an hour, and was extremely tired, it was a bit scary (I didn't really know how it would react if surprised by a running human deep in the forest).
Also in Alberta, a buffalo (at Elk Island) which caused me to make a small detour to avoid getting too close!
I once had a hunter in a tree-stand point his gun at me while I was hanging controls for a meet the following day. He insisted I was trespassing on private property. Somewhat stunned I looked at the map in my hand, which confirmed I was still in a NY State Forest, looked at his gun again, and said something like "I'm terribly sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you. I'll just be going this way out to the road, if that's ok."
He seemed ok with that so off I went. Got to the road and came out right where he'd parked his car. Took down the license plate, ran home, and called the sheriff.
That night there was a huge ice storm and we had to cancel the meet anyway.
Another time I was pre-running an A meet course the morning of the meet and had a hunter with a gun stop me at the edge of an open field, demanding to know what I was doing and why I was doing it on his land. I said I was orienteering and much to my surprise his face lit up and he started in on how he used to do that when he was in Norway. [Which is more surprising, getting stopped by an armed stranger, or finding an orienteer at an A meet who doesn't know he's at an A meet?]
After taking him to meet hq to meet the meet director, it was determined that the map did in fact unknowingly include this guy's private land due to inaccurate info given to the club by the scout camp whose land had been mapped, and the longer courses were crossing it that day. Since his hunting had already been ruined for the day by me and the 2 other pre-runners who had preceeded me, he allowed the meet to continue for the remainder of the day.
In early October I was vetting for our meet in Cable, WI. I was just going into a control and was surprised to see what I thought was my dog--which was out with my wife--walking towards me. It took me a second to realize it wasn't my dog, but a black bear. It was directly under the control I was going to check. By the time I figured out what was going on, we were only about 10 meters apart and closing.
I yelled and it took off, but if I had just had a camera to get a picture of the bear AT the control...
Many years ago I was setting up course I heard sound near by. I looked left to see deer horns behind a hill going in the same direction I was going. All in sudden deer changed direction and started to come across the hill towards me. It took me by surprise and scared me at the same time that I did not think about trying to move out of the way. I just froze on spot and all I can think about was “Deer is going to run over me!!!”. Deer did not see me till the distance between us was 10-20 yards. From the looks deer was startled to discover me in his path, stopped, and run away different direction.
After course was set I was at the other end of the map. Road leading out of the woods was extremely muddy that I could not ride my bike on it. On the left side there was huge fenced field but the ground was solid enough that I did not have any problem riding my bike on it once I put bike over the fence. Except… I did see this white horse at the far end of the field but since the horse was at the other end of the field and field was HUGE I did not think horse will mind me using it till I get on more solid road. While I was riding my bike along the fence I could see horse coming my direction with corner of my eye. I kept riding but I noticed that horse is getting closer and closer. When horse was within 100 yards it was obvious that horse was not happy sharing HUGE fence field with me. I did not have any tree or anything to protect me but my bike. I jumped off my bike and held my bike in front of me to protect me from charging horse.
Horse stopped about yard short of me. I was few yards from the fence but horse did not have any intentions of letting me go. While holding bike in front of me I “backpedaled” to the fence, somehow climbed over the fence while managing to keep bike in front of me and I got my bike over the fence. For every step I moved backwards horse would move that much foreword.
That was scary, man!!!
My only option was to continue through the mud (and I did not have soccer ball/football with me). Horse would follow me along the fence till I got to solid road.
That was odd, odd day for me.
This discussion thread is closed.