Your Most Amazing Animal Experience!

I've got a couple I can think of off the top of my head:-
1) Seeing a male lyrebird displaying at Healesville Sanctuary. I only had my phone with me but still have the video to prove it. I was so excited when I realised what was going on and he kept going for about half an hour.
2) Seeing humpback whales when we went whale watching at Hervey Bay.
3) This one isn't quite as exciting but having a huge tiger snake in our living room was pretty cool (and it makes a pretty good story here in the UK).
 
Seeing a brown hyena looking at me from the depths of its bramble filled enclosure at Port Lympne, a species that I'd never seen before, and at virtually the same time realising that a nightingale was singing, a species that I'd never heard before.
 
Non-Zoo: floating along in a Zodiac off coast of Antarctica while Southern Right Whales swam with (and under) us.

Zoo: having a baby gorilla -- under 2 years old-- run up to me and extend his arms so I would pick him up. He relaxed in my arms and played with the hair on the back of my head. (This was while I, as an zoo employee, was observing some film makers trying to get footage of baby gorillas moving through the "forest.' One got away and ran to me.)
 
I also smile at a memory from London Zoo, ca 1988/89. At that time, the Zoo had two elderly and docile Sumatran tigresses. It was possible for small groups to be led into the service area and see the animals in the race that led to the outdoor enclosure, accompanied and supervised by a keeper.

Before letting the animals into the race, the keeper always warned the group that being in close proximity to big cats could have a bad effect on anyone nervous. On this occasion, bang on cue, a girl who appeared about 12/13 slid to the floor. The rather shaken keeper appealed for the child's companion to take her out.

After a pause that seemed to take about two hours, but can in reality only have been a couple of minutes, a very sullen small boy's hand slowly appeared, the highlight of his day having been ruined by his big sister.....:)
 
Non-Zoo: Seeing several humpback whales, including a calf, off the coast of Boston. Watching a black bear, scurry up a hill in Yellowstone NP. Or seeing a flock of around 100,000 snow geese all take off at once at the sight of a bald eagle.

Zoo-Watching animals mate or nurse is always a happy occasion for me. At a visit to a crappy roadside zoo I had juvenile spider and capuchin monkeys crawl all over me. In hindsight, not smart. However, I enjoyed it at the time.
 
IanRRobinson said:
It was possible for small groups to be led into the service area and see the animals in the race that led to the outdoor enclosure,
Click to expand...

In the old Lion House, the outdoor cages were connected to the indoor ones by barred passageways above the very wide service corridor which ran between them. They were called the 'bridge dens'. So the tigers could often be found sitting quietly directly above you.
 
I'm going to choose two examples from the wild: in 1975 in Ghana, quite near the school where I was teaching, in a small patch of secondary forest, a young Gambian sun squirrel came right up to me through the bushes and oil palms - at the same time a small flock of chestnut wattle-eyed flycatchers were flying all round me, less than a metre away in some cases, I still remember the clicking of their beaks and the whirring of their wings. I was so thrilled that I stepped on top of an ant's nest and I didn't notice until the soldiers found the thin skin behind my knees and in my groin, when the birds left I had to drop my trousers to remove them :eek: I have a few poor pictures to jog my memory.
The other was the first time I saw a grey seal being born at Donna Nook last year, wind squalls were blowing the rain horizontally so I couldn't take any pictures but watching was enough.

Alan
 
Walking near/following Asian Lions in the Gir Forest in India. Its rather bizarre as they are remarkably 'tame' and you can approach them on foot- with care. They apparently have a gene for 'tractability' and won't normally attack or harm you as Lions in Africa would.

Watching a 'fired-up' wild male Capercaillie in Scotland at his lek in April- one of those 'rogue' males which loses its fear of humans at this time. Every time I stepped within his prescribed territory he would attack me, if I moved outside an invisible boundary he would leave me alone.

Holding a Kakapo.

Zoo- seeing Basel Gorillas for the first time (1968).
 
So many count! For wild animals, the various sightings of coyotes, dolphins, Pygmy Whales, Bald Eagles never fail to awe me. I also saw a wild cougar twice, once when I was six and another when I was fourteen. Also highly memorable to me, was seeing the wild snapping turtles in Cambridge, Ontario.

I saw a camel being born at African Lion Safari.

Watched the lions at Toronto stalking a raccoon.

Watched a African Crowned Crane display for his mate.

My first African Wild Dogs in in person at the North Carolina zoo was a zoo visiting highlight for me.

My first Okapi, at London Zoo.

Watching a number of cheetah litters maturing at Toronto mature.
 
While doing fieldwork with the Totonac indians in Veracruz, Mexico i actually saw an adult armadillo tied to a tree in forested space near the village. It was very calm and i picked it up , knowing it was destined to be cooked and eaten in its shell. Should i leave an indian family without supper ? Or was the armadillo actually my animal soul (nagual) which many native americans say we all have. Enough, i thought "army, it is not your day to be cooked".I went for a cardboard box and with my pocketknife i cut the rope. I put the animal in the box and I walked about 2 hours to a more remote area with undisturbed vegatation. I let the armadillo loose and hoped it would be alright.
 
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My most amazing animal experience involves me indirectly. When I began at my current zoo, I volunteered at our Education building cleaning,feeding, and displaying animals to zoo visitors. One day a grandfather came in with his grandson. As I started taking out snakes,tortoises,lizards,hedgehogs,cockroaches and talking about them, I noticed the boy went through periods of interest and fear and back and forth. I eventually spent at least a half an hour with the boy and he was touching the animals and asking questions finally. It came time for him to go(which he now didn't want to) and his grandfather came to me and thanked me for taking the time with his grandson. He explained to me that his grandson was autistic and until then would never touch any animals and was afraid of them. That was five years ago and still to this day that was my favorite zoo moment.
Number 2 would have to be my kids and I getting some up close personal time with a Kiwi at the National Zoo in DC.
 
Doing the primate island tour at Mogo Zoo and spending allot of time at each island getting to know each group and hand feeding many.
 

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Seeing the only group of beluga whales outside the arctic region on the St.Lawrence river in Quebec. Seeing several other species of whale/dolphin. In the Canadian rockies seeing wild bighorn sheep and wild harlequin ducks. In zoos: seeing the both cock-of-the-rock species, I love cotinga's. Seeing an aardwolf at Berlin, and douc langurs in Cologne.
 
I forgot about another one of mine. Getting to feed a black rhino at Western Plains Zoo.
 
Interesting thread and warranting posting and not lurking.

There are a few:

Seeing masses of Northen Elephants Seals near Cambria, California.

Swimming with the elephants at Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary Malaysia.

Releasing buckets of Sea Turtles on the beach at Kuantan, Malaysia.

The wildlife at the resort we stayed at in Langkawi, Malaysia - a big troop of dusky langurs on our balcony each morning (very gentle), a civet running around in the house at night and giant squirrels in the trees.
 
Mine had to be getting a chance to see a California Condor up close (about a foot in front of me) without a barrier. A keeper at the LA Zoo brought over a Condor that had been brought in from the wild to receive medication to our volunteer workshop so that we get a chance to see one up close. Unfortunately, the bird died the next day because of severe lead poisoning.
 
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