What's your STORY ?
Tell us your best WILD ANIMAL Story!
Do you have an amazing "WILD ANIMAL" story?
‘VISIONS OF THE WORLD’,
would love to hear about it and possibly put it on this website for the masses to enjoy and
share around the world!
Send a paragraph or two, no more then
300 words to...
Thank you and Good Luck!!!
Sincerely,
Julian Starks
JAMES VANAS
July 1, 2023
They are beautiful, comical, slow and extremely elusive. They spend most of their lives underground in deep shelters. The Gila monster is the largest native lizard and the only venomous one in the United States. I have been catching and radio-tracking them in the Mojave Desert of southern Nevada for seven years and their antics never cease to amaze me. As obligate nest feeders, they feed on the eggs of snakes, lizards, ground-nesting birds and desert tortoises. They also take baby rats, mice and rabbits when found inside an underground nest. Mating takes place inside a shelter, usually. But on one early evening I was sure I was about to witness a rare event.
ALAN SALDANHA
October 22, 2022
I run like a cat with an aerodynamic thrust. I can zoom-zoom. No other animal on planet earth can match my speed. I am a cheetah- the fastest mammal alive. Long ago when the continents were one, my ancestors roamed the earth freely. Even then, the cheetah was the fastest land animals. Thousands of years later, I wandered the length and breath of Asia and later to Africa - the place I now call ‘home.’ My speed helps me to survive. It gives me an edge over predators. I can outmaneuver poachers on the Savanna. I can run short bursts at 100km per hour. With eyes narrowed down and paws outstretched I breeze the course.
I am not easy to prey on. Even while clocking 100km per hour I can decelerate and affect an abrupt turnabout at a speed 35km. per hour. I can spot a predator one-seventieth of a second before the normal eye. That was the time taken for Sir Donald Bradman to spot a cricket ball hurled at him. I employ faints and body swerves to outmaneuver my attacker. At times, a hare, a wildebeest or an antelope gets away from my clutches. The important thing for me to get close enough or else I will miss out because I can only run at top speed for five minutes or so. By then my body temperature rises dangerously and I have to take rest to cool down.
Bursts of speed put a strain on me; however, my body has an aerodynamic design that helps me streak. I have wide nostrils and large lungs as also a strong heart and large arteries that can draw on an excess of oxygen. My home is in the grassland of central and eastern Africa. The tall grass provides me cover. I wait and bid my time. I can see a wildebeest calf separated from its mother. I take off and I pounce. I go for the jugular vein of my victim. Then I shake my head briskly. My victim bleeds slowly; I tear my prey to shreds. The calf’s eyes stay wide open. I devour my meal fast. My mouth is blood stained. I eat fast because others may get to know.
My night vision is poor though better than the human eye. However, if I am caught up in a blinding head light, I stare transfixed and am at the mercy of a hunter. I can smell my prey at a distance of 100 meters and detect a moving object some five kilometers away. Despite being a fierce hunter my appearance is cat-like, I have a somewhat oval face with dark tear marks around the corners of my eyes.
The African Savanna is my home. I would much rather roam and hunt in the wild than be a pampered pet of a Middle East oil Sheikh who might take me around in the back of his limousine. A life of luxury would bore me intensely.
Poachers smuggle cheetahs across the horn of Africa from Somalia and Yemen. Many cheetahs perish on this journey. There is a preference for Cheetah cubs. Those who survive find oil rich homes. I don’t mind humans, but I detest being led on a leash. I find it demeaning. There is the danger that our species will perish.
Our numbers are depleted. In countries like Iran where there are less than 70 white Asiatic cheetahs at a risk of extinction. In Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe the government allows trophy hunting. Consider the money involved. A full-grown cheetah can command from $15000 to $20000. Some of the sub-species of Cheetah number fewer than 250 in North and West Africa. Poachers from Asia want me for my bones and other body parts. Cheetah bones are of medicinal value.
Some humans are selfish. Some don’t care if I perish.
SAMPLE WORDS FROM MOUNTAIN MAN LANSING AND THE WOLF PACK
The freeze was down on top of Towner Lansing, stashed into his bunk of blankets and furs from hunting, but nothing furry, or even dense, shut out the howls of the wolf pack often scratching at his door, an open wound still giving off enough odor to call down the gods, never mind a whole pack of wolves at the war of survival in mid-winter. His initial loss of blood must have travelled behind him and directly to the door of his log hut, the hut made of those parts stolen from the forest and raised again to provide his cover and comfort, his home away from home, if you'll take it from me.
Lansing did his best to stem the bleeding, got it under control, fell asleep amid the pile of furs, woke long enough to feed logs into the fireplace, fell back to sleep, the draw of sleep not letting go too easily, the way it clutched at him with paws of its own.
The wolves, though, the whole pack of them, had little quit in their own survival methods, as if practically hurling themselves at the hut door stubborn enough to hold off Heaven and Hell in counter attacks. Though he was secure in that thought, he occasionally fired off a few single rounds to disturb them. He watched them scatter through a safe-cut peep hole, obviously letting in a thrust of cool air, and swapping the scent of blood to the pack.
In one random shot, no particular target on his scope, the mountain man wounded one wolf that fell from the hit, telling Lansing that the wounded critter, in a short time, would become nothing more than food for his "former" mates, the rule of the wounded and the just dead as they are handled in survival instincts. The universal trait took over, all of them, him, the wounded critter, the wolf pack as a whole, knew what was coming, a body torn to shreds to get at the edible parts, survival of the fittest no matter the former association and relativity.
Tom Sheehan
Photographer
September 4, 2022
ALASKAN BROWN BEAR
“Few things compare to standing in the presence of a large, wild Alaskan Brown Bear. Several years ago, while standing on the bank of the Kanektok River in Alaska with a fly rod in hand, I felt that ancient sixth sense, embedded in all species, come alive. It’s the sudden and unexpected tingle on the back of your neck that makes you realize, without any other sensory explanation, that you are in the presence of a predator and you may be its prey. It is a feeling that humans rarely experience these days, but on a wild Alaskan river, it could only mean one thing—the presence of a Brown Bear (also known as a Grizzly when found further inland). Upon sensing the presence of this magnificent and frightening creature, I turned slowly to discover that a female bear had emerged from the willows about 50 yards away.
From training, I let out a monotone but dominant, “Whoa Bear!”; this got her attention, although there is no doubt that she had known of my presence for some time given the incredible power of a Brown Bear's olfactory sense. For the next 30 seconds our eyes locked, it felt like an hour. I stood frozen while she considered her next move, ignore me, eat me, run from me, the decision was hers to make... and then without incident, she turned and disappeared back into the deep Alaskan bush. Like a ghost, she appeared and like a ghost she vanished, but there was nothing ephemeral about her existence meeting mine. It was at that moment that I experienced all of the emotions and thoughts that come from truly experiencing raw wilderness, and it made me realize how much we need experiences like that to fully comprehend what it means to be alive and what it means to be a part of life on this Earth."
All the best,
Ben
Ben Monarch
Wildlife and Public Lands Attorney - 9/16/2019