GolfHos

Minn. man finds his AWOL wallaby
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_fe_st/odd_missing_marsupial;_ylt=AmnNRExEa_GGxhooQVAyVT3tiBIF

Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

Wouldn't you expect to see a wallaby in Minnesnowta?

Don't ya just hate it when that happens. ;)

We have a Wallabys in Columbia Heights.  I've seen many things leaving there after a night of consumption.

Except a kangaroo.  I guess.  I'm not sure.

We have wild turkeys that run around here. ;D

I hear they can be pretty mean.

I think I see a pic on the horizon...  ;)

They like hanging out in the cemetery up the road.

Do they ever get close?  I understand hunting them, they can be one of the most elusive, but from what I hear, if you get close, to "semi-adjusted" ones......they will charge and attack.  Seriously.

They walk through neighbors yards and stuff, but don't get too close. Maybe they see me shooting my bow in our yard everyday and figure they better stay away from me. ;D One of our Pastors had one get stuck in his garage though.

Actually, no.  I never have my camera with when I see them by the roadside.

In December I noticed a flock gathering in the field behind our house so I snapped this shot of ~16. A week later we counted 42.

We see them quite a bit around here but I've never seen as many together as then. And stroh's right, as  odd as that sounds, the "acclimated" ones can be quite nasty.

(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c189/FuzzyPhotos/P1000863.jpg)

We have wild turkey around here too. They can be mean too if provoked but usually mind their own business if left alone.

Nice pic, Fuzzy!

I wouldn't necessarily say that the acclimated turkeys are nastier than those in the wild.  I think it's just that they have become more accustomed to people but not so much that their natural instincts have been tamed.  From what I have observed on an overall spectrum, people see that they (any wild animal) are adapting to the their environment and have a bit of a pet mentality.  "Oh, aren't they cute" or whatever.  "Let's see if they let me get close" seems like a brilliant idea.  Then they have a false sense of security when the wild animal allows them to take half a dozen steps toward them.  Unless someone is particularly interested and studied in animals and their habitats and behaviors, most tend not to recognize the warning signals the wild animal may be giving them, either, but rather consider them to be cute antics or some such thing.  (I'm not saying that someone that is studied on them is 100% immune to attacks but certainly have a smaller likelihood of such things happening.)

I've mentioned before that we had feeders in our backyard that deer would come to and that I was able to go out there to fill the feeders while they were out there.  I would have been able to be within 5 feet of them if I had wanted to be (or if I had let them), so I'm definitely not against getting closer to animals in the wild.  Just that over time I've come to know that even a flick of an ear can mean you're pushing to far.  Because others don't necessarily realize that, they can't "show" the animal that they don't mean to endanger them.  At that point, a squirrel most likely would run away (although, if you get them at a time where they feel cornered, or close to a next with young ones, or some such thing, I'm sure they would attack), a raccoon or turkey would be more like to defend themselves in more situations.

Eagle I hope you didn't have feeders in your back yard to attract the deer, as easy target practise for Torp and his bow and arrows. :o :o

lol   

Not in the least.  While we do hunt, we also have great appreciation for all of creation.  We had several families of deer that came year-round.  Sometimes we'd have 8 or more out there at a time.  The fawns didn't necessarily stay around once they were grown, but we did have one that I was pretty certain kept coming.  His name was Nubbins. :D  There were probably a few others, too.  It was wonderful to watch them grow and see how they became accustomed to our voices and such.  When we first tried refilling the feeders while they were out there, they would spook and wouldn't be back for 10 min or so. Then they gradually became more accustomed to it and only run 20 feet away and come back in when we were done.  Little by little, they wouldn't run as far so that they'd only back up a 5 feet and start walking toward us before we could finish dumping the corn into the feeder.  'Course, we were careful when we were out there, too.  I'm sure they couldn't understand us, but it was interesting to see how they would respond to different voice inflections.  Lots of nice memories. :)

And then there was the one with 5 ears. :-\ Even got to see a 12+ pointer and a 10+ pointer fight less than 8 feet away from us. 8)

Mountain west surrenders.

I never was around when that fawn came by.  There was that one with 3 ears, too.  :-\  A few 8 pointers come to our feeders with regularity, too. 8)  And what's really cool is that we have the 12 pointer fighting the 10 pointer on video.  8) 8)

Obviously ... because it wasn't a fawn. lol

"Hey, that kangaroo stole my ball!"

 ;)