Uncommon road kill

[mstang67chic]

After ThreeShadow's story of hitting the Moose with Mongo on the Bucket List thread, I came up with a story too. Not wanting to hijack my own thread, I thought I'd start this one.

What is the strangest thing you've ever hit on a road? Or any amazing road kill stories?

Mine doesn't involve something that I hit but is one I heard about.

When I was in high school, my summer job for four years was detassling corn. One field we did surrounded property that contained a chicken farm and the owner's home. He also had a "pet" lion. (I don't know WHY and I don't know how he was allowed but he had one all the same.) The lion's living quarters was a shortish former grain bin but instead of having a solid metal wall, it was basically steel wire. (Not THIN wire but probably as thick as your finger.....guess that wouldn't be wire though) Anyhoo....he would let us go up to the cage and sometimes touch/scratch/pet the lion if he was in there with him. (And let me tell you....even a lion's PURR is kind of scary!LOL) Apparently though, he had had two originally and acquired them as cubs. When they were smaller, he would let them loose to run and play. One day when he did this, one went to the road (he lived on a rural highway) and got hit. Now, I think this guy was stupid for having these things in the middle of Indiana without a proper environment but can you imagine? You're driving along a country highway in the middle of nowhere (in INDIANA of all places) when all of a sudden something runs in front of you. You slam on your brakes but can't stop and hit this creature. When you get out to look, instead of the dog you expect you see.....A LION!!! And explain THAT one to your insurance agent!

 

[DammitJanet]

Well...I dont think I have hit anything odd. I once hit a kitten in a paper bag in the middle of the night. Dont ask me what the kitten was doing in the bag in the middle of the night. I didnt see the little eyes until I was right on it and couldnt swerve.

We have birds here who play chicken with cars. Dumb birds. They sit in trees on the side of the road and wait till cars come and try to fly right in front of you. Sometimes they miss. Splat!

I once hit an owl. Oh and a fox. Tons of snakes. Biggest snake was a six foot rattler about as big around as a soda can. I aimed at him...lol. Ran over him once, turned around and hit him again to make sure he was dead.

 

[Shari]

Can we count things that we strategically missed, too?

I've hit more deer than I can count (in white cars - thus the handle Great White Hunter).

I drive a 3/4 diesel truck and I hit a German Shepherd puppy. The puppy's head shoved the middle of my bumper in on my truck at least 6 inches (and this isn't a little chrome covered flimzy bumper, its solid steel). The puppy had to get a few stitches in his head, but he's fine (in fact, he beat me back to his owner's house when I went to tell them I'd hit him!). And the owner was worried about paying to fix my bumper! (I declined...its still very bent...I don't care)

I almost hit an elk and a mountain lion, and there was a wallaby loose in our area for quite some time. It was eventually hit on the road.

 

[Hound dog]

I can see the look on the insurance agents face. lol

Janet, I almost fell outta my chair when I saw about the rattler. LMAO Good for you!! I'm afraid I'd have done the same thing.

And just what is it with the birds anyway??? OMG they dive bomb my car on the way to school when I go to the southern campus. BIG birds, you know those turkey buzzards? Sheesh.............

I hit something here in town not too long ago. I was gonna stop in case it was a dog or cat. I know I hit the thing. (a distinct sound) But when I looked in the rearview mirror nothing was there! I turned around and went back in case I knocked it up on the curb or grass. Yes, I'd been speeding at the time. (I have a lead foot even in town) Nothing. Nada.

Still don't know what I hit.

 

[gcvmom]

Biggest snake was a six foot rattler about as big around as a soda can. I aimed at him...lol. Ran over him once, turned around and hit him again to make sure he was dead.

Are you sure it wasn't a lawyer?

 

[susiestar]

WOW! You all have hit some interesting roadkill. I have only EVER hit one thing in my life. It was a possum and he ran right in front of the car. It was so sudden I didn't even have time to realize what it was until after I hit him. I was 17 and sat on the side of the road for half an hour crying over the dead critter.

Although I would also have aimed for the rattler and backed up over him just to be sure. And I generally LIKE snakes.

Shari, what was a WALLABY doing loose in your area?

I DO remember living in Cincy when various animals including a tiger got loose at different times. I was a kid when the tiger got loose. Later I refused to even look at houses around the zoo. Not when something got loose every so often.

 

[gcvmom]

It is so funny that you started this thread, because I was trying to think of how to tell you all about something I left out of one of my vacation threads...

We were driving out of Kings Canyon National Park last month, just starting our ascent out of the canyon, when something darted out from the bushes on the side of the road. husband couldn't avoid it and we heard the sickening wump-wump as the animal got flipped up under the rear tire well and tossed back out.

husband was really freaked out, stopped the car, and he and the boys and I walked back to the scene of the accident to find out what the poor creature was. husband was thinking it was a fox or something about that size. He and the boys walked right past it but I spotted it right away. It was a HUGE grey squirrel. The size of a cat. Poor thing was gone for good.

From then on when we were driving, we started randomly shouting out "SQUIRREL!" (if you've seen the movie "UP" you'll understand) to remind husband to watch out for potential roadkill victims. I know. We're a sick family.

 

[bby31288]

I absoutely hate when squirrels commit suicide by running in front of my car! Why is it they are 3/4 across the streed and then run back!?!?!

 

[Shari]

I know. We're a sick family.

You are not alone.

When difficult child 1 rode bulls, he had a lot of rodeos in Arkansas. At the time, we didn't have armadillos where we live (they are here now), and we saw a nicely intact roadkill armadillo on the way home from a rodeo.

One of difficult child 1's friends was a HUGE outdoorsman and noticed every little thing about nature and animals. So we picked up the armadillo, and delivered him in the middle of the night to the buddy's road, just up the street from his driveway, tossed it on the road like it had been killed there.

Just as planned, he got on the bus Monday morning wound tighter than a 60 day clock, cause there was a roadkill armadillo on his road.

We moved that thing to several spots along his bus route before he finally caught on that there hadn't been an armadillo invasion...

Sickos. Right here with ya. (but dang was it funny...)

 

[mstang67chic]

OMG Gcv...if I was driving and someone yelled that I'd probably swerve off the road in a panic! I hope he's not too twitchy! LOL


Janet....I don't blame you a bit! I HATE snakes!!! I still shudder thinking about the one Jamie told me about that he had to remove from someone's house. And THEN he took it home to show his daughter!!! *shudder*

I'm going to guess that the wayward wallabee was from the zoo??? They had a mass escape at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo a few years back. Of wildabeasts. About 10 of them. (maybe more) The got some back and while I don't remember if any got hit, they did have to put some down due to injuries they got while out.

Daisylover....LOL You should go to my mom's house. She got all freaked one day when she went outside and there were about 8 or 10 of the buggers perched on top of the barn. She said she thought they were looking at her like they were just waiting. LOL

My step-mom though.....now SHE'S the one who has very strange critter happenings. They live at the very end of an addition that's not considered in town. Their end of the addition is 1 acre lots and a lot of trees so they kind of consider themselves as being in the country. (Especially since their house is on the corner) Before they even bought the house while they were still house hunting, they looked at a place (down the street I believe) that had a dead squirrel just kind of hanging from a branch by one paw.

Fast forward to their house now....since they've moved in they have had: a very sick BALD squirrel roaming the property and drinking from the pool. (Dad and the neighbor "took care of it"), hawks swooping down and snatching rabbits from the yard while step-mom was working in the garden (she now yells "I'm not a rabbit" when she hears the hawks LOL), multiple frogs (like 10 or 20) swimming in the pool with my youngest sister, the same frogs scaring step-mom in the garden when she heard them rustling in the beans because apparently that's where they hang out when they aren't swimming, a DEAD squirell floating in the toilet (scared the bejeebers out of my little sister and I LMAO when I heard about it. and apparently, they weren't the only people in that neighborhood that it's happened to!) and....um....I'm sure there's more but that's just off the top of my head. They have also had neat critter encounters. Recently, there has been a fawn sleeping in the stand of trees behind their house while the momma is out doing momma things. They see both of them in the evenings at times walking across the back yard.

 

[mstang67chic]

OMG Shari that is deliciously evil and I LOVE it!!!!! An old boss of mine (lived in the country and was a country girl) went home for lunch one day and found a dead, stiff racoon in her mailbox. It had died in such a way that one paw was up and looked like it was waving. She didn't deal with it at the time as she was in her dress clothes but joked about propping it up on the porch so it would be waving at people when they drove up. (She also hoped her mailperson didn't get mad at her!)

 

[Shari]

No, we don't have a zoo. Just college kids. The wallaby was someone's illegal pet. The owner didn't come forward for a long time, and it actually lived "in the wild" for a good 8 months. It would be randomly sighted around town...

Then it met its waterloo...

 

[Shari]

Oh the coon is too funny....I love it.

 

[DammitJanet]

How did the coon get in the mailbox?

 

[mstang67chic]

Someone put it there. I never did hear if she found out for sure who did it although she had her suspicions. (Done in good fun though....nothing malicious)

 

[DammitJanet]

Oh...I thought maybe it came UPS!

 

[Star*]

I didn't hit - but DODGED.......

A pizza
A slurpie
A hair dryer
A bottle of White rain
A can of Spam
A flip flop
A nother flip flop
A sump pump
A china hutch
A mattress - they die a slow death
A box spring
A turkey vulture
A pair of shorts
A pair of jeans
A pair of socks (the nerve)
A hair brush (bet it went with the dryer)
A christmas tree
A box of decorations
A box of lights
A manger scene
A huge lighted pumpkin
A chair
A chair
A chair
A couch cushion
A chair
A tv stand
A couch cushion
A baby jesus light up doll
A moose head
A Mr. Coffee Coffee maker
A bunch of batteries
A deer head
A remote
A bobcat on a log growling

And finally the dumb SOB figured out by enough people driving faster than him waving madly and screaming and pointing back that his tailgate had come down - his entire trailer of possessions had blown off the trailer and were strewn all over the freeway (which I was now referring to the 911 operator as THE GAUNTLET) busted to hades....and not only had he lost everything he owned but he had left his entire large pizza pie and extra jumbo slurpie on the roof of his truck and they had blown off too....

We suspect he was smoking.....and NOT cigarettes...

It wasn't a show until Baby Jesus went skidding by us at 45 mph followed by that Moose head. THEN it was hysterical.

 

[mstang67chic]

O

M

G!!!!!!!!!!


Only you Star, only you!

 

[Nancy]

Gvcmom I guess I won't introduce you to my husband when you come to Cleveland.

Nancy

 

[Fran]

I didn't hit it but.......
We had gone to the Grand Canyon and was on the road to visit the Biosphere. I think easy child was 5 and difficult child was 9 or 10.
It's out in the middle of nowhere. As we are driving some rural roads we saw signs "Caution Darting Cows". We cracked up. It seemed the funniest thing to say. What the heck? Were the cows waiting until we came around a bend and darted out? We got a big laugh out of it until a little later we rounded the bend and a darn cow darted out. husband and I looked at each other and both said "darting cow". It was pretty funny. We never heard of a sign or a cow like that.

Fortunately we didn't hit it.