Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game The critters you have seen that should'nt be there?

A willow ptarmigan..... In idaho

Cougar in a hay barn.

In 1979, a buddy was working as a fish checker (basically) for the Idaho Fish & Game.
He was staying in the F&G cabin at 4th of July pack bridge. Weekends we would head up from Lewiston and "replenish" his beer supply and fish the North Fork River, Kelly, Cayuse and Ruby creeks.
One weekend he had another F&G roommate there. His position?
Wolf study guy. In 1979.
Good times, though.

P.S. I saw a bighorn ram up Potlatch Creek towards Juliaetta Id. a long ways from Hell's Canyon. Must have REALLY been looking.

Maybe 5-6 years ago I was deer hunting in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in SE Oregon and my hunting pard glassed what we both agreed had to be a wolverine. The Fish & Game now says there are a few, back then they would of said no way.

more common than you'ld think....my grandparents farm in McCone County bout 5 miles south of the Missouri basically straight south of Wolf Point had tons of them in places.....usually had a couple for pets every summer.....normally found them in the grass above badlands usually withing 10 feet of the drop off down into the cuts......course this is also where ants really loved to set up shop im guessing cause kept water drained away from the nests in heavy spring rains like this weekend......

A beaver walking along a road in North Texas just about 100 Miles ENE of Dallas. What I would call high desert country and I don't recall seeing ANY natural water source anywhere in that area.

A box turtle in my back yard about 2 weeks ago. To qualify this, I live in what most would call downtown St. Louis in an area that has been established for about 130 years with row style houses. MY back yard is what most would call tiny and has no grass. Assume he was a released pet.

A dead armadillo on the side of a major, high traffic, highway well into an established, commercial area of north St. Louis. I had heard they were in southern MO but not seen one this far north and the odd thing is it was 20-30 miles from anywhere that would seem rural enough that he might have just migrated a little too far away. He would have crossed a number of major highways and through very populated and urban areas.

My brother was squirrel hunting with a friend in PA several
ago and saw a large snapping turtle making its way through the
woods. No ponds or streams anywhere near them, it wasnt real
cold out, but it wasnt warm either.

Buffalo in southwest Wisconsin. Was planting oats in the fore noon a few years back. Saw what looked like a bunch of beef cows milling around off in the distance near my east line fence. Made another turn with the drill and witnessed the buffalo go thru the fence, then another and they went out sight.

Later I found out they were buffalo that escaped from a herd owned by the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) up river from my place about 45 miles. That day they went thru a lot of fences and they stopped at the Mississippi River.

A bear, right under my treestand, last year. Right at dark, he ambled up towards an abandoned horse barn, so when I left, he was between me and the road.

If I coulda kept him there another three days, he woulda been legal, but he decided to move on.....That's alright, I had only brought one day's lunch with me.

I really don't have that much patience, anyway.

two monkeys running across the county rd holding hands, in Duval county TX.

saw a jet black squirrel today, by my house, we have them in the northern part of Michigan , but the 1st Iv ever seen down here, also shot a big woodchuck 20ft. out of a tree along time ago!

I have heard of coyotes showing up in large cities but they
are pretty much nocturnal when they do.

I think it's a given the north Idaho wolves were there before their "introduction". My brother and his hunting partner saw a pack of 5 while elk hunting in the Frank Church Wilderness Area several years before the official release.

While working trail crew in the St. Joe Forest in late 60's, we bumped a sow griz with two cubs, which FS and Idaho F$G swore up and down there were none of in that area and time.

A few years earlier while haying in central No.Dak. I watched a couple big weasels playing/hunting around the rock piles in the field for over an hour. I figured out what they were about 10 years later when National Geographic published pictures of Black Footed Ferrets, thought to be extinct, but newly rediscovered in Wy.

Grasshoppers on ridges above the Noatak River, 40 miles above the Arctic Circle.

My ex-wife.

Way off her normal range of guarding hell.

Yesterday I saw a mangey fox. First mangey fox I've ever seen around here.

i saw one down on Sand Creek out south 11 or 12 years ago but thats the only one i can think of round here....

There was a report of a mangey cougar down at the Elk's last night.

those are more common......

Saw a white/grayish (mostly white) wolf while bowhunting in central Utah back in the 1980's. Scared it off a deer kill. Reported it to the Fish and Game and they did not treat me like I was crazy. In fact they said I was not the first to report the wolf in the area.

Saw a cow and calf moose out in the middle of the flattest wheat stubble field you every saw in the middle of North Dakota about as far from moose habitat as they could be. Shoot, you could see the back of your head on a clear day in that part of the state its so flat, featureless, treeless.

Nearly everyday I wake up to Ring Neck Turtle doves outside my window here in Central Montana. I've seen them all over the state, and also saw some down in Wyoming last week while I was hunting bear. What's so unique about that?...well, turtle doves are from Africa. So they are a fur piece from home. They live year' round and never migrate. I don't know how they survive the winters, but they do.

One other thing I've seen several times that never ceases to surprise me is when I'm up in the alpine country above 6000' and pop out of the timber only to see a herd of pronghorn antelope. Just seems so out of place for them.

i can explain the moose in NoDak.......just over the border in Canada is pretty good moose habitat with a booming population and as the numbers have grown they have headed south......getting more and more common to see them round here

Most people think of scorpions as southern desert animals, but we have quite a few in so. Idaho's desert. As far as I know we don't have any poisonous species but they can still give you a painful sting. I've see a few over the years.