Not exactly in my garden, but a short walk from home. Last night, J and I were out walking the Labs along the gas pipeline which runs across our land and beyond. It doesn't sound very romantic, but it's actually a beautiful walk... You can see the yellow posts behind the dogs - these mark the buried pipeline. To the left, there is a strip of woodland that separates us from the road (well, I call it a road, but it's the same surface as what the dogs are sitting on there, and has approximately one car a day travel on it!) and to the right, there are fields at this point. Here's a satellite image... So, we we walking along the blue line from our house "Finca" on the left, going right. The dogs mooch about, mainly on the pipeline itself, but sometimes go into the trees a few metres for a sniff. At about where the yellow star is, Willow went into those trees on the right; at their widest, 60m across before they open to fields again. She didn't go in with any real purpose, just bimbling, and was only in for a few seconds before she started running out. Fast, but not looking panicked at all. Because I was looking at where she had gone in, I saw something dark following her - I just assumed it was a loose farm dog, until it came into the light. Oh, Jesus Christ on a bike. It was a MONSTER of a wild boar, that was now approaching us, only about ten metres away. Willow's face was "Yay! I'm being chased!", which is her favourite thing. A second of shock and J and I started hollering at the beast, which turned tail and ran away. Thank every deity you can think of. Then, Willow and Luna decided it would be great fun to chase it back! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU IDIOT DOGS?!?!?!?! Luckily, they responded to our screaming after only a few seconds which felt like an eternity, and came back where we, with trembling hands, clipped their leads on and got the hell out of there, J with a big rock in each hand just in case. All this time, Shadow was having a good sniff of a tree, looked up at the noise but had absolutely NO idea what was going on. Which I am eternally grateful for, because he's our chaser and, peculiarly, I haven't proofed against big-ass wild boar. I think I lost a few years off my life. A few minutes of silence later, J and I burst into those nervous "well, that was a close one!" giggles. This morning, I woke up at 2:30am thinking of all the "what if"s that just don't bear thinking about. Honestly, the critters are out to get us this year! That's it, no more dusk walks for us!!
We saw a rabbit that ran across our path whilst we were still giggling maniacally. The dogs were still in their aroused state and so did get excited by it, but it wasn't much more than frantic wagging and a bit of half-hearted pulling on their leads. I need to do lots of recall training to pay back into that "bank account" - I think I made a hefty withdrawal yesterday!
Goodness, the Spanish flora and fauna has got something against you this year, hasn't it! You haven't accidentally disturbed an ancient burial site, have you? In all seriousness that is truly scary and sounds like you all had a lucky escape, I assume it had tusks?
Well, one of my first thoughts on realising it was a wild boar was "At least it doesn't have huge tusks!". When I got home, I looked them up, though, and they don't have very visible tusks; they are relatively small, well hidden but still very dangerous. I so wish I'd had my GoPro on. I need to start wearing it from now on! Of course, that will probably mean that nothing exciting will happen on any walks for the rest of the year so there will be nothing worth capturing but, you know what? I'm fine with that!
It also answers a question - one of the covers of our septic tank was split a few weeks back. These things are designed to be stood on by people and there's nothing overhead that could have dropped on it, so it was a bit of a mystery. I think that mystery has been solved, this beast could easily have done it. I've been looking up the difference between boar tracks and deer tracks, because I'd seen what I assumed were a couple of deer tracks on our land some time ago. I didn't even consider they might be boar because there's been no other sign. In Andorra there are loads around and they are hugely destructive with pretty obvious digging patterns. Willow and Luna are also rather fond of their poo, so I know what that looks like and we've seen none of that. Well, last night I certainly didn't need a hole in the ground or a pile of poo to let me know there are boar in them there woods! If you're interested, here's the relative footprints of boar and deer:
Footprints are quite similar, you need one of each to compare! What a scary 'adventure' than heavens your knight in shining armour scared the Boar away! I loved the photos of the 4 dogs and good to see Ginny looking happy and smiling.
Yeesh! Scary for sure! I had an interesting sighting the other day - a lynx crossed the highway when I was driving home from the city. I’ve never seen one in the wild before, so that was pretty cool! Yesterday I was walking on our usual trails and I met a lady who said she saw a bear there the day before. Which isn’t surprising, they are definitely around...just a reminder to be on the alert. I’ve never seen one there (thankfully, I can’t imagine what Simba would do) but I have seen their scat, so.... On a less dangerous note, we surprised a deer on the trails the other day. Thankfully I knew something was up - Simba had obviously scented it on the trail and was on high alert tracking mode so I had grabbed the leash. We came around a corner and there it was, taking off into the bush. Very glad I had the leash, or Simba would have happily given chase!
Crikey. Give me venomous snakes and spiders any day! We have wild pigs in the outback and I saw one once from the back of a ute when visiting a friends farm....and it was the scariest thing ever. I can't begin to imagine how terrifying it would be on the ground with it.....thank goodness you, J and the dogs are ok @snowbunny
Wild boar are serious critters. I grew up in East Tennessee, where they had Russian Boar that had been transplanted as a game animal. The sporting goods store I frequented as a boy had two mounted heads, that had huge tusks. The boars must have weighed 300 to 400 lbs. The advise was that after you spotted a boar, you found a tree to climb. Then you shot the boar and climbed the tree, while you waited for it to die (or not) On a more serious note, two mountain bikers in Washington were attacked by a Cougar this past weekend. One was killed and the other had significant injuries. They did all the things they were supposed to do when meeting a Cougar, but the cat still attacked. Game wardens later tracked down the cat and killed it. It was only about 100 lbs which is quite small for a male, and there is some thought that it might have been sick, since it was not scared off by two men on bicycles. It is the first Cougar fatality in Washington in 96 years. Washington has about 2000 Cougars, while Oregon has about 6000.
Yikes!! Wild boar are scary, I wouldn't want to meet one Be careful. x David and I were chased by an Ostrich once, not in our garden though! x
[QUOTE="On a more serious note, two mountain bikers in Washington were attacked by a Cougar this past weekend. One was killed and the other had significant injuries. They did all the things they were supposed to do when meeting a Cougar, but the cat still attacked. Game wardens later tracked down the cat and killed it. It was only about 100 lbs which is quite small for a male, and there is some thought that it might have been sick, since it was not scared off by two men on bicycles. It is the first Cougar fatality in Washington in 96 years. Washington has about 2000 Cougars, while Oregon has about 6000.[/QUOTE] They were talking about this on the radio here the other day...seeing as we have cougars around one does pay attention to these stories! Interesting to note that the wildlife biologist said that it is often people on bikes or cross-country skiers who are attacked by cougars, as they don't behave like walking people, which they have learned to stay away from, and are moving at a faster pace, triggering their predator instincts. Just FYI for anyone else in cougar country....
The cougar attack in Washington state made the news here, terrifying stuff. I immediately thought of @Emily_BabbelHund and her mountain lion encounter in California. @Ski-Patroller can you rate the wild cats on a scale of danger to humans? Are cougar the most dangerous? @snowbunny did your beast look like the image you shared, because that thing looks like a creation out of Weta Workshop *shudders*
Except for the rare Florida Panther, Cougars are the only big cat in North America, so they are the most dangerous we will ever encounter. Bob Cats and Lynx are too small to be a threat to humans. Cougars normally stay clear of adults, and the two Cyclists tried to fight back, at least one using his bike as a weapon. The Cougar was quite small at around 100#s and the Fish and Game folks thought it might have been sick, hence the necropsy.
In theory, the worst we get here would be sea eagles (I think), but I feel really pleased to live in Scotland right now with all these stories.
