9.
KANGAROO BREAKS AND ENTERS
Kangaroos are docile vegetarians that rarely attack humans.
But it does happen, as one Australian family learned one night in 2009 when a kangaroo
broke into their home in Canberra!!
Beat Ettlin; his wife, Verity Beman, and their two kids were sound asleep when their dog
started barking and woke them up at two in the morning.
They assumed the dog had seen some possums and went back to sleep.
Minutes later, a large marsupial smashed through the window and flew into the couple’s bedroom,
landing on their bed.
It was a disoriented kangaroo, who proceeded to jump wildly around the room.
Ettlin, whose property sits next to a nature reserve, told local media that at first, he
thought a “lunatic ninja” had invaded his home.
The family hid under a blanket while the animal continued to hop all over the place in an
attempt to find a way out of the room.
After leaving the master bedroom, it headed toward the bedroom of Ettlin’s 10-year-old
son.
Fearing for the boy’s safety, Ettlin chased after the kangaroo, jumping on its back and
putting it into a headlock.
The two became entangled in a wrestling match as Ettlin dragged the six-and-a-half foot
(2 meters), 90-pound creature toward the front door.
He shoved the kangaroo outside and it hopped back into the bush where it belonged.
Ettlin reported the attack to local police and wildlife authorities, who concluded that
the animal must have panicked after hopping a fence into the family’s backyard.
In its attempts to escape the yard, the confused creature entered the home and became even
more alarmed.
8.
RABID FOX ATTACKS NEW JERSEY RESIDENT
Tammy DuBois was checking a bird feeder outside her home in South Jersey in 2018 when she
heard a strange rustling in some nearby bushes.
There are a lot of stray dogs and cats near her home in Pittsgrove Township, so she assumed
that it was someone’s abandoned pet.
Moments later, a red fox sprang from the foliage and charged straight at Tammy, making the
frenzied “yipping” noise that she had heard from local foxes before.
The frightened 52-year-old cautiously backed away from the animal as it circled around
her and sunk its teeth into her leg and then bit her again.
As Tammy ran for her the door to her house and tried to get inside, the fox continued
to chew on her leg.
She held one hand down on the creature’s snout and squeezed its neck with the other
hand until it went limp.
Tammy later told local news site NJ.com that she didn’t want to kill the fox, but clearly
had no other choice.
After warning a neighbor about the animal, she went to the hospital, where her wounds
were dressed and she began a two-week rabies treatment.
And it’s good that she did, because the carcass tested positive for rabies.
7.
MYSTERY ANIMAL MAULS CAMPER
In 2019, a 21-year-old man known only as Marco L. went camping with some friends in southwestern
Germany near the city of Waiblingen.
He was sleeping in his tent when an animal that was later described as a “mysterious
and highly-aggressive amber-eyed beast” slashed open Marco’s tent and mauled his
face.
The victim later told the media that he awoke to a burning sensation in his neck.
Moments later, the creature sunk its teeth into his hand.
He still wasn’t sure whether he was having a nightmare or experiencing a real-life attack.
Marco tried to wake his friends while attempting to defend himself against the animal.
When he finally got the creature to let go, the first thing he noticed was a large amount
of blood.
But the attacker came back for more.
Luckily, this time Marco was able to use a pillow to fight it off.
He was taken to the hospital, where doctors operated on his injured hand and began a rabies
treatment regimen.
Based on the animal’s high level of unprovoked aggression, all signs point toward it being
rabid.
So it was especially important to treat Marco for rabies immediately, because once symptoms
start to show, the disease becomes lethal.
The state’s Ministry of Environment started an investigation in hopes of determining what
kind of animal was responsible for the frightening assault.
6.
HUNTER V. KODIAK BEAR
A 68-year-old Alaskan hunter named Gene Moe was butchering a deer on an island east of
Kodiak back in 1999 when a huge grizzly bear took him to the ground and mauled him.
Moe was badly wounded, but managed to pull out his knife and stab the bear, causing blood
to spurt from its neck.
He plunged his knife into the animal two more times before it finally gave up and got off
him.
The hunter then retrieved his rifle and fired three bullets into the bear.
After killing his attacker, Moe walked to the beach, where he found other members of
his hunting party.
He covered as much as two miles (3.2 km) on foot despite being badly injured.
The group loaded their injured friend onto a boat and traveled to a more populated shore,
where Fish and Wildlife Protection trooper Allan Jones saw them waving wildly as they
approached.
Moe got up and walked out of the boat, despite having a slashed ear and torn flesh and muscle
hanging from his arm and leg.
But even before then, anyone in the man’s life already considered him the toughest person
they knew based on a previous near-death hunting accident he had survived.
The Coast Guard rushed Moe to the hospital in a helicopter.
He was in surgery for seven hours and received more stitches than one of the nurses who treated
him could count, according to Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Tod Lyons, who spoke with
the Anchorage Daily News.
Thankfully, the old timer was expected to make a full recovery.
5.
BRAWLING WITH A BUFFALOES
In early 2018, wild buffaloes started mixing in with cattle herds owned by farmers in the
Zimbabwean town of Dete.
They had strayed into the grazing pastures from nearby Hwange National Park, leaving
farmers tasked with chasing them away.
A villager named Thabani Dube was tending to his cattle when a buffalo began following
cows that were in heat.
He had a hard time keeping it away, and it kept returning to the herd.
The buffalo charged at Dube’s bull, prompting the farmer to release dogs on the animal,
which became even angrier and ran toward Dube himself.
It managed to gore the man’s shoulder, but he luckily escaped without any serious injuries
by crossing a trench that the buffalo couldn’t cross.
This was just one of numerous attacks that happened as the problem of buffalo intermingling
with cattle worsened.
Villagers and officials were left terrified that at some point there would be a fatal
clash.
There were also consequences to pregnancies between buffaloes and cows, which created
highly aggressive wild offspring that could not be raised on a farm.
Around the same time, residents complained about wild hyenas and lions preying on their
livestock.
A Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson reassured the public that they
were taking reports seriously and responding to them as effectively as possible.
4.
FAMISHED POLAR BEAR
In 2011, 17-year-old Horatio Chapple joined around 80 other students for a month-long
Arctic expedition to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.
A few weeks into the trip, the British teen spotted a gigantic polar bear footprint in
the ground, sparking fascination but not fear from his fellow travelers.
Just days later, a polar bear breached a faulty tripwire that was meant to protect the campers
from attacks.
It slashed open the tent that Mr. Chapple was sleeping in and viciously clawed at the
young’s head and upper body, killing him and injuring two others.
A pair of expedition leaders were also wounded before the bear was shot dead.
Chapple’s parents, who had expressed concerns about the possibility of a polar bear attack
before the trip, accused the expedition company of failing to keep their son safe.
A coroner’s inquest agreed that the tripwire system was inadequate – it was missing parts,
forcing the group to unsuccessfully try rigging it with paper clips.
But the investigation determined that Horatio’s death was not caused by failures on the company’s
behalf.
The findings also revealed that the group’s rifle was old and difficult to use, and that
the travelers had minimal firearms training.
Consequently, the expedition leader who shot the bear was unsuccessful on his first try
and had to reload the gun with serious injuries, delaying his ability to render the animal
a non-threat.
The teen’s parents used his death as an opportunity to caution other moms and dads
about the importance of thoroughly vetting any travel organization they trust with their
children’s lives, even when it means asking difficult and uncomfortable questions.
A necropsy of the bear’s remains determined that the animal was starving, old, and had
bad teeth.
The 24-year-old specimen’s circumstances are undoubtedly what triggered it to become
desperate and unusually aggressive, even for a polar bear.
3.
ENCOUNTER WITH A NILE CROCODILE
When infectious disease expert Dr. Richard Root was invited to spend two months working
in Botswana as part of an outreach program in 2006, he and his wife eagerly agreed.
The 68-year-old reportedly found his work treating HIV patients to be extremely rewarding.
He was enjoying his time over in Africa and even made the time to embark on some tourist
excursions.
Three weeks into the trip, the couple decided to go canoeing along the Limpopo River to
observe the area’s wildlife.
Root and his wife were each in their own canoe, and he was paddling ahead of her when one
of the tour guides suddenly yelled “Croc!”
By then, it was unfortunately too late for the doctor to avoid the 15-foot (4.5 meters)
reptile’s direct path.
The crocodile suddenly pulled Root into the water and disappeared.
His body was found later on.
Botswana Police Deputy Commissioner Thebeyame Timako told the South African news outlet
Independent Online that there was no record of previous crocodile attacks in the area.
But the Nile crocodile is certainly to be feared.
Found throughout 26 African countries, the species is responsible for as many as several
hundred human deaths every year.
While the creature has a reputation for being particularly aggressive, these fatal encounters
are exacerbated by the close proximity that people and Nile crocodiles tend to live within.
2.
FATAL MACAQUE ATTACK
In 2014, news headlines reported on the apparent growing problem of monkeys taking over the
Indian capital of Delhi.
At the time, there were an estimated 30,000 red-faced rhesus macaques running wild throughout
the city, and they had a widespread reputation for aggression.
They had gotten used to people feeding them and were alarmingly comfortable with stealing
food, alcohol, clothing, medical equipment, and other personal belongings from innocent
civilians.
The monkeys even occasionally broke into cars.
At just eight pounds (3.6 kg) each, it might seem laughable that anyone would be afraid
of the primates.
But people are often bitten during these encounters, which is especially concerning since around
90 percent of the monkeys are infected with tuberculosis.
They’re also powerful in numbers, as deputy mayor Surinder Singh Bajwa learned in 2007,
when he was attacked by a group of macaques while standing on the balcony of his home.
He fell off the terrace while trying to fight them off and died from head injuries the next
day.
Today, Delhi remains plagued by tens of thousands of monkeys.
The Hindu religion forbids killing them and many people continue to feed them, encouraging
the creatures to continue associating people with food.
There are ongoing efforts to curb the population, including large-scale sterilization campaigns,
but it’ll be a long time before the monkeys become manageable.
1.
FOLK SINGER V. COYOTE
During some free time between stops on a concert tour in 2009, 19-year-old up-and-coming Canadian
folk singer Taylor Mitchell decided to take a solo hike at Cape Breton Highlands National
Park in Nova Scotia.
That same day, an American couple visiting the park noticed a pair of wolves who were
alarmingly unafraid of humans.
Minutes later, they heard howling and what sounded like a young woman screaming.
The pair called the authorities from a parking lot phone booth and passed their observations
on to a few other hikers.
Along the trail, the hikers found Mitchell’s keys, pocket knife, and shredded pieces of
her clothing.
Further down, they saw a coyote standing over the young woman, who was covered in bites
and other serious wounds.
At the time, she was still conscious.
Bystanders failed to scare the animal away.
It finally ran off when a police officer showed up and fired his gun.
Mitchell was rushed to the hospital, but she had lost a lot of blood and it was too late
to save her.
She perished from her injuries.
The cause of the attack was unknown.
Experts speculated that the coyotes may have been rabid, had perhaps interbred with wolves
or domestic dogs, or Mitchell had possibly tried to feed them.
Evidence suggested that the animals had stalked the young woman for quite some time before
they gave chase, and that she had tried fleeing to her car but couldn’t outrun them.
There were also signs that Mitchell had tried defending herself against the coyotes with
a penknife and her car keys.
To this day, the encounter remains the only known fatal attack by a coyote on a human
in Canada.
But it happened amid a particularly brutal spate of attacks that left several people
injured, indicating that the coyote population was reaching problematically high numbers.
Mitchell’s parents said that their daughter was an animal lover and that they didn’t
want the coyotes who attacked her to be killed, but law enforcement thought it was more important
to act in the public’s best interests.
They identified the attackers, who were covered in Mitchell’s blood, and shot them dead.
Thanks for watching!
Would you rather be chased by an angry mountain lion or suffer through a 12-hour flight that
stinks like rotten seafood?
Let me know in the comments below!