There's a coyote howling outside my house.

polichik

I live in a "suburb" of Chicago that's basically still in the city. I hope there aren't any small dogs running around, or they will soon become ex-dogs.

Any wild animal encounters lately? I know SOMEBODY has one.

BecW2be

Not lately, but I once almost let a possum (an opossum?) in my house, thinking it was my cat. It was dark and I opened the back door, thinking the animal wanting in was my cat, and it was a freakin nasty ugly possum. He just looked up at me like, "Really? You're letting me in? Ok..." and started to come into my house. I screamed and he just turned and walked off.

I made sure to turn the back light on before letting the cat in after that.

danieliza1127

My friend that lives in the city has to check for coyotes every time before she lets her little dog out.  She doesn't live right in the city, but close enough that it's weird to me that she has to worry about that!

alixzafiris

Yep. It's been decided by my family that I'm strictly a "city girl".

We were driving at the edge of Mississauga a couple of weekends ago and my mom points off into the distance (there was a field and then further back, a "wood") and goes "Oh! Look at all those deer!" Me, being like, supremely intelligent, glance where she's pointing and stare hard for a few seconds, then I turn to her and go, "Where are you looking, I can't see past all the cows."

There were no cows. Suffice it to say, I didn't realize deer that were not like, Caribou or Moose could get that big.

beatlesgirl25

Uh oh. Where's a roadrunner when you need one?

A couple months ago I saw what looked very clearly to be a wolverine running across the street where I live (there is a lot of forest area in our neighborhood). I've seen it pop out 3 times while driving by, and last time I slowed down to try to get a picture with my phone but it ran away. Nobody believes me that it is a wolverine. I know it sounds crazy and they are indigenous to Siberia or whatever, but it was NOT a skunk, cat, bear, dog, or badger. If I see it again, I'll call animal services to see what they say, but it's been awhile since he's shown his face. If only it was the Hugh Jackman kind of wolverine, then I'd be all set.

Stackeye210

Twice in the past 3 months I've went to throw a bag of garbage away in an empty container and a possum is in the trash can.  An empty trash can - he obviously picked the wrong one and then couldn't climb out.  The first time I knocked the can over and tried to lure him out with a stick, he just hissed and then didn't come out for over an hour.......the second time I just kicked over the trash can and went back inside. 

We also have squirrels that live in our detached garage.  They haven't figured out that building their nest on top of the garage door when it's closed means everytime we open the door we ruin their home. 

cmhershey

Last summer while we were in Maine for a wedding, we were driving down the mountians to get some gas, and had to stop in the middle of the road for this gigantic moose.  I didn't realize how big they could get.  

thesuninherhead

Now, you see, THIS is exactly why I'm quite ok with having spiders outside, and don't quite get when people say, 'OH MY GOD AUSTRALIA IS SO DANGEROUS!!!'. There's no risk of walking outside and facing a man eating dog or bear over here. 

BrassyClarinet

We have coyotes that are constantly hanging out around our land.  Though, because of recent developing, they look like ragged, large dogs more than anything, which kind of makes it worse if a kid approaches them.  They stay away from the houses as long as you have a dog that barks.

I just saw on the news that a kid's dog saved him from being mauled by a mountain lion.  It was only a medium sized dog, and the poor thing had its face shredded by the time the police got there and shot the mountain lion.  The dog ended up being ok, though.

rhodesign

Poli, remember that coyote that went inside of a downtown Jimmy John's last year?

EDIT: It was a Quiznos and about 3 years ago
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=5179979

aMrsin09

TheSun...

A coyote is more afraid of you than you are of it.  However, little deadly red or white back spiders THAT YOU CAN'T SEE, have no problems crawling into your shoes, or pant legs.  The snakes also are known to crawl through the car vents and INTO THE CAR.  You will never find a man eating coyote in your front seat. You will also never find a coyote staring you in the face when you open a cupboard for your coffee cup.

alixzafiris

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_theres-coyote-howling-outside-house?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:ad361fcd-4112-405c-ad6c-ae570f2b7b29Post:017b96fe-f24b-4efa-b5f6-b2e202e60895">Re: There's a coyote howling outside my house.</a>:
[QUOTE]Now, you see, THIS is exactly why I'm quite ok with having spiders outside, and don't quite get when people say, 'OH MY GOD AUSTRALIA IS SO DANGEROUS!!!'. There's no risk of walking outside and facing a man eating dog or bear over here. 
Posted by thesuninherhead[/QUOTE]

Where in Oz are you Sun?

When we were in South Africa, we didn't have air conditioning or whatnot (nobody really did) but we had these like, grates on every room that were basically about a foot square and made up of 1-inch cubes that were just cutouts to the exterior of the house to let in fresh air. Geckos and snakes and (gah!) spiders used to crawl in all the time. Plus we had freaking scary-dangerous baboons and mambas in the trees beside the house. Outside was deadly ;)

Stackeye210

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_theres-coyote-howling-outside-house?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:ad361fcd-4112-405c-ad6c-ae570f2b7b29Post:8beeb16d-cc1e-4e0b-985d-dcc0a0f0eda8">Re: There's a coyote howling outside my house.</a>:
[QUOTE]TheSun... A coyote is more afraid of you than you are of it.  <strong>However, little deadly red or white back spiders THAT YOU CAN'T SEE</strong>, have no problems crawling into your shoes, or pant legs.  The snakes also are known to crawl through the car vents and INTO THE CAR.  You will never find a man eating coyote in your front seat. You will also never find a coyote staring you in the face when you open a cupboard for your coffee cup.
Posted by aMrsin09[/QUOTE]

What do you mean you can't see them?  How big are they?  What does the bite do to you if you don't die? 

ac_in_dc

Bec, did you ever see this pic? Someone on the bump (I think) has it as a siggy pic:

Stackeye210

Please tell me that's not real!

aMrsin09

That is what we call an oppossum (sp?)  aMr says they are VERY different than Aussie possums.  First time he saw one it was crossing the road.  He slammed on the brakes and asked, WTF is THAT thing?  Of course, becuase possums freeze in headlights, they had a mini international stare down.

thesuninherhead

PS: aMrs, you will appreciate this:
The other day, I was saying to H how silly it is that everyone overseas seems to be so scared of the snakes and spiders in Australia. I was talking about how I'd only seen one snake in my adult life, and that was last summer when we moved here and there was a tiny snake in the garden.
Anyway, H says to me, 'I've seen three snakes since we moved here!' and I was like, WHAT?! Apparently while mowing the lawn he's seen a giant carpet snake (harmless, but still!), a red belly black snake (not too bad I don't think, but not something I want to run into!) and a brown snake, apparently one of the few aggressive snakes we have here.

All that said, I was just reading online and according to one random website: "When snake bite fatalities per million inhabitants are compared, Australia's venomous snakes pale to insignificance, especially next to places like India, South America and Africa. Even the figure for the USA is clearly higher (Australia 0.13, USA nearly 1). The deadliest of all Australian Animals, responsible for an average of 10 deaths per year, is the European Honey Bee."

So I guess I should be ok if I watch out for those bees and horses! ;P

aMrsin09

How can that be?  You guys have 6 out of the top 10 most poisonous snakes.

thesuninherhead

Because apparently they're not aggressive thus rarely bite and usually just avoid people. And also, apparently the tests of poison are conducted on mice so supposedly this makes some difference (I mean, obviously mice and people are not the same, but I'm not entirely convinced on that one. I think the former makes more sense, though).

thesuninherhead

According to wikipedia we also have less incidents of bites though than many other places, according to this anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Number_of_snake_envenomings.svg

Also I guess just because we have deadly snakes doesn't mean we have a lot of them (although Nick may tell you otherwise!). :P

Who knows really! But I do know that when someone gets bitten by a snake, it's usually on the news... thus, it obviously doesn't happen so frequently that we're complacent or used to it.