Four Wildlife Encounters I've had in My Travels

Last year, I sat at the kitchen table one morning and noticed the headline that Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin died in an underwater accident. The article that was associated with the link said that the accident happened during an encounter with a stingray.

Two weeks before Irwin's accident, I was SCUBA diving in the Caribbean and noticed a stingray near the artificial reef where we were diving. I hovered over the fish and poked it with my lobster stick. After the second poke, the ray swam away from my partner and me.

The wound that Irwin suffered is not typical and most stingray injuries are caused when a person steps on a semi-buried animal in shallow water. Stingrays are docile creatures and will normally swim away if approached by a diver.

During the last couple of years, I have had a number of encounters with wildlife. In looking at what happened, most of my encounters have been because of something that I failed to do and could have ended up a lot worse than they did.

The Sea Turtle:

Shortly after I earned my PADI open water certification, several of us met for an afternoon of diving. A few hundred yards after dropping below the surface, I looked up and saw a sea turtle swimming in the same direction that I was going, and swam next to it for about fifty meters.

The way that I have told this story since then is that I soon attempted to ride on the back of the turtle; however, what really happened is that I reached out to touch the animal on the back of the neck. At that point the sea turtle circled me for several minutes.

Despite this being one of my first dives, I up righted myself and stood still until the green sea turtle realized that I was not a threat and swam away.

Kicking a shark:

While I was diving in the Outer Banks, I paused for a moment to watch a trio of sand tiger sharks swimming ten meters from the decent line.

After several minutes, I reached the end of the descent line and floated near the anchor. Instead of making mental notes of my surroundings, I focused on getting my camera ready as my legs scissor kicked through the water.

Suddenly, my flipper bumped against something and my attention focused on what had happened. I looked down and saw a four foot grey, sand tiger shark turn around and swim away.

Getting hit by a bird:

This did not happen in the forest; it happened while I was walking downtown.

It was my lunch hour and I went to get some sushi at the local market. It was a clear summer day and it was great to get away from my desk for a half hour.

I had just crossed the street and was walking past the train station when I felt something poke at my left shoulder; I looked back to notice a small bird flying away

Caught in an iguana attack:

For one year, I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay Cuba with the military. On the base, Cuban Rock Iguanas are protected animals and roam freely on the roads and trails throughout the base.

One afternoon, I was running on the main road and noticed an iguana moving slowly towards the road that a similar sized iguana was lying next to. As I jogged by, the reptile that was sitting by the road flared the hood around her neck and let out a loud screech. I stepped up my pace as the iguana leapt to its feet and got faster as she raced towards me.

It took a moment to notice that the iguana that was trying to cross the road had crossed into another animal's territory and was now in a race for its survival.