People Recount Terrifying Animal Encounters That Nearly Took their Life 

7. Beware of a swooping magpie. Magpie attacks can cause severe injuries. If you are unexpectedly swooped while cycling, you could be in a serious wreck.… Trista - September 10, 2021

7. Beware of a swooping magpie.

Magpie attacks can cause severe injuries. If you are unexpectedly swooped while cycling, you could be in a serious wreck. DareDare_Jarrah shared his experience when a Magpie was following during a bike ride. “I’ll never forget the time this kid rode into the servo I was working in. He rode into the store on his bike. He would have been about 10, and he is in tears. So he asked me to call his mum because he’d been chased for about a kilometer by a swooping magpie.

“I try to call his mum, but there is no answer. I buy him a lemonade because he’s out of breath and distraught and then try to phone his mum again. Still no answer. I go outside to see if the magpie is gone. It appears to be, so the kid thanks me and heads off again. He gets onto the footpath, and the magpie attacks. He drops his bike and just runs across the forecourt and back into the store. ‘IT’S STALKING ME!!’ He screams, and seeing that I know what he is going through, I call him a taxi and pay for it to drop him home.”


6. Being charged at by a grizzly bear will change a person.

The grizzly bear is a North American subspecies of the bruin. Grizzly bears are typically brown, lending them their name. However, their fur can appear to be white-tipped or grizzled, which is another nod to the name. Grizzly bears are protected by law within the continental United States. Sadly, though, not in Alaska. Nevertheless, there are some controversial attempts to get rid of those protections in recent years. A Redditor, jakejork, shares a horrific incident when he was charged by a grizzly bear. “I was working on the same piece as another planter for about an hour, then heard a soft thumping sound.

“Then, I looked up and saw an adult grizzly bear running towards the other planter, whose back was to the bear. I started running towards it, waving my arms and yelling. The bear stopped, turned towards me, and stood on its hind legs. I stopped moving and was about 20-30 feet away from it. The bear stared at me for about 5 seconds (felt like an eternity), dropped back down, turned around, and bolted back into the tree line. Saw two cubs with it that we weren’t anywhere close to, so we figured it was probably a mother teaching its cubs how to hunt. I had to sit down for a while after that because my legs were shaking so bad.”


5. Hello, bull shark!

A Redditor named TributeToStupidity shares his animal encounter story saying: “I have a few good animal stories, but the scariest was getting charged by an angry bull shark. I was down in Florida with my family, and my dad, brother (11), and sister (6) were all decently far out hanging out when we spotted the shark. It was probably between 4-4.5 ft. My dad and I went shoulder to shoulder with my siblings behind us and started quickly but calmly heading in. This thing must’ve charged us nearly half a dozen times at or near full speed and only broke off when it got within 10-15 ft. The feeling was were in its world, and if it wants one of us, it’s probably going to take one.

“So, we finally get in, and the shark heads down to the beach. I look down, and there’s another family with a small girl in a life jacket out in the water. So, I run down and yell at them, but they aren’t listening. I figured I’m bigger than it, and if it were going to attack me, it would’ve, so I start swimming out to them. I popped up about 15 ft from the girl with the dad on her other side, and that shark was right in between us. Without thinking about it, I jumped forward and slapped the water, and I think I spooked it. I jumped forward and grabbed the girl, which the dad, who hadn’t seen the shark, didn’t appreciate, lol.”


4. Leave kangaroos alone.

You probably know that a kangaroo is a large-foot animal with a long muscular tail and powerful hind legs. However, did you know that these marsupials have special teeth that are very uncommon in other animals? Red Kangaroos are the largest breed of kangaroos. In Australia, there are more Kangaroos (almost double) than the number of people living there. Kangaroo attacks are rare but might be fatal in some circumstances. kzyang shares an intense experience on Reddit. “If you’re standing up, the kangaroo can kick you with its hind feet, which can just about rip you open. That’s extremely dangerous.

“This isn’t from me but my mate. Once on a school camp for 21 days in Alpine Australia, we were forced to sleep alone for 48 hours. So, at around 2 am on the second night, I heard a shout from where he was sleeping. He told me the next morning that a kangaroo stole his hiking pack and that in panic, he threw a water jug at it. Low and behold, the kangaroo regrouped after a short time and surrounded him in a circle. All he remembered were like five pairs of eyes staring back at him in the night. I have yet to ask him how he managed to fend them off. But yeah, that’s Australia for you.”  


3. Meeting a coyote isn’t a pleasant encounter.

Redditor BobisBadAss talks about a crazy deer hunting encounter. “I was bow hunting for whitetail, sitting in full camo on a downed tree, leaning against another tree, in a dark, thick cedar swamp. I dozed off for a while and woke to the crunching sound of footsteps. So, I darted my eyes around and saw the back end of a canine as it stalked through the trees within about 20 yards, going from my right to my left. From the reddish in the fur, I assumed it was a coyote and not a wolf, although I didn’t see it long, and it was a BIG coyote.

“As it got far enough to the left, I lost sight completely behind the tree I was leaning against and could only hear it. I sat there with an arrow nocked, just listening, when suddenly I heard and felt a thud of this animal jumping up on the log I was sitting on. I sat there and listened to sniffing sounds at the back of my head for a few seconds. It then jumped back down, and I heard it trot away as calmly as it had approached. My heart was racing the whole time, but it wasn’t “terrifying” since coyotes/wolves pose zero threat to humans.” 


2. Finding a massive green frog in your house will make anyone jump.

You might think frogs aren’t harmful to humans. A single “golden poison frog” harbors enough poison to kill ten adults. Perhaps these frogs are the most poisonous animals alive. They’re among the many species of toxic frogs, which people refer to as poison dart frogs. You will notice that they are all small yet deadly, making the encounters quite scary. Redditor jakiblue explained his terrifying experience.

“Just last week, I went to the toilet at home, only to discover a massive green tree frog in the doorway. Not scary to some, I know, but I have a phobia about them and was absolutely terrified, out of my mind screaming, scared. Hit the hallway wall whilst screaming for my husband and then sat on top of the kitchen table while he took the frog outside, in case it got loose and hopped around and attacked my legs. My family thinks it’s hysterically funny and continues to give me frog-themed gifts at Xmas and birthday. They’re all sitting in a box in the cupboard, and I refuse to look at them.” 


1. An ankle-bitter got the best of him.

Cuddy606 shared a scary animal encounter on Reddit. The user said, “It was grade 7, and for some reason, I was just a little late for school. As I started to walk across the big field in front of the school, this ugly little dog came out of nowhere and latched right onto my boot. He was ugly, like a cross between a chihuahua and a rat or something. It was winter in Canada, and I had big thick boots on. Well, it wouldn’t let go of my boot. It just kept growling and shaking its head.  

“Luckily it was too small for its teeth to make contact with my feet. I didn’t want to kick it or anything, so I just kept walking, dragging this crappy little dog about 200m to the front steps of the school. As mentioned above, I was just a little late for school, and class hadn’t started. So, all the kids on that side of the building were in the windows watching this dog and me in mortal combat and laughing. So, it probably wasn’t terrifying in the traditional sense of an animal attack, just embarrassing. 30+ years later, and I still hate that dog. I’m glad it’s dead.”