incapableofgivingup asked:

Random question of the day: What has been your favorite animal related experience?

petermorwood answered:

Oh gosh, there’ve been so many - mostly cat-related, I admit…

There were the scary startling ones - the female tiger in London Zoo who made a effortless leap fifteen feet up to join her mate and made every watching human make a simultaneous leap three feet backwards as Instinct overrode Observation.

Or being in the lock-on zone as a full-grown male lion at Zoo-Basel targeted the small child behind us for lunch. We just had the overspill of his interest, but we still got all-over goosebumps, sweaty skin and stomach-flutters from the Ape Inside shouting “Run Away!”

Or walking after dark in the grounds of Blairquhan Castle and being scared out of a year’s growth by a red deer stag exploding out from where it had been snoozing in the undergrowth, then posing magnificently in the moonlight like Bambi’s Dad or Herne the Hunter while D & I tried to get our hearts started again.

Then there were the funny ones, usually involving our cats - Goodman, who discovered that his latest dumb bunny turned out to be a screeching, scratching leveret who was Mad As Hell and Not Going To Take It Any More. He finally gave up on game for lunch, so we caught the leveret in a lidded saucepan and returned it to the meadow, where it sat up swearing and threatening our lives, limbs and immediate future before making a getaway dash that cracked lightspeed.

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