My Modern Metropolis

Giveaway #2: Rare, Portraits of America's Endangered Species

We'd like to thank our partners over at National Geographic for sending us this incredible book, Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species.

Representing a 20-year-long mission of National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore to record North American species facing extinction, Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species is a beautiful book filled with tragic stories. Sartore showcases 69 creatures from snails to wolves to whooping cranes, capturing haunting portraits that make us remember how mankind is negatively impacting other forms of life.

See this older post for a preview of Joel's gorgeous photos.

So how are you going to win this?

Tell us about your favorite wild animal encounter. If you don't have one...make one up! Best story wins.

Related:
Ready for Some Giveaways?
Giveaway #1: Lonely Planet's 1000 Ultimate Experiences

Update: Check out CNN's Joel Sartore interview. Also, contest ends on Monday, April 26th at midnight. :)

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Comment by Amy Wong on April 24, 2010 at 6:45pm
Oh my, I have told of my close encounter with a lory before. It was at Singapore's bird park. We were at the bridge, and there were so many lories flying about. Lories are like mini parrots, they're tiny, and colourful. There was this one lory, hanging on the bridge rail. And it didn't fly away like all the other birds. I moved my hand towards it attempting to touch it, and it's leg just clamped around my finger. Eventually we shook 'hands', and my uncle then, took a snapshot of us. It was quite a memorable picture. And we became really good friends. :)

But after that, I think the lory got really hungry as it kept biting my finger. :X

Also, I had another fun field trip to the National Zoo back in Malaysia. The art class had to sketch every animal they see, and elephants were no exception! I've snapped a picture of it, but be warned, it's not a pretty sight! Click if you dare! :P
Comment by Lei Xing Ye on April 24, 2010 at 6:02am
Hmmm, can't remember many but one that will always stay with me is when I was I think 5 or 6 and my family and I were in England and we were going to the Zoo, this was probably my first time I think and you know it's one of the zoos that you get in your car and drive through? That was the one and the journey was great so far, ya know looking out the window at the many amazing creatures and then suddenly I looked out the window and like a bunch of monkeys were like walking over to the car and I was so excited to see them coming closer and started shouting 'MONKEYS MONKEYS!' but as soon as they started getting up on top of the car and (I think) banging on the car, can't remember very well, I started crying XD. I love monkeys but that was a pretty terrifying experience for me back then, not anymore though XD
Comment by Mark Huckabee on April 24, 2010 at 4:54am
I was scuba diving in the Florida keys near Sombrero reef. The ocean there is separated by long rows of coral that reach nearly to the surface. In between these rows the water is about 20 feet deep. I swam over the top of one coral row and quickly slid down the other side to the bottom, being careful not to touch the coral. As I slid to the bottom and came to a stop, I came face-to-face with something. My dive mask was literally touching the nose of a shark who had been sleeping there. My eyes POPPED wide open. His eyes POPPED wide open and for one second we were just staring at one another both terrified out of our minds. Then he took one mighty swoosh of his tail and shot away over the next coral row. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it pounding in my ears. I'm still not sure who was more scared though me or him. His body was at least as big an mine so if he had decided to stick around I could have been in a lot of trouble.
Comment by Natasha on April 24, 2010 at 3:46am
In Durban South Africa,they have a place called Lion Park--Our family went there often when we were kids....You drive through the park in your own car..But the one day our car broke down right in the middle of the park.....I was about 8 years old then...I just remeber all us kids-my brother and 2 sisters freaking out...the closer the Lions got to the car the more we would scream..We were convinced we would be eaten..The lions kept coming up to the car,checking us out....Thank god someone else finally drove by--like 2 hours later...and they went to call for help(the days before cell phones..how did anyone cope).....Seriously thought we would be stuck there forever and be eaten by wild free roaming Lions...the ride home was very quiet from both parents...hah...Will never forget that day!
Comment by Kevin on April 24, 2010 at 12:55am
When I was about 12 years old we were camping out in the desert in Arizona. While hiking by myself I heard a rattling noise. When I looked down there was a coiled Rattle Snake at my feet. I did the exact opposite of what your supposed to do abd jumped over it and ran. Luckily it didn't strike or I probably would have died out there in the desert.
Comment by IanJ on April 24, 2010 at 12:36am
I've had some cool experiences but the stories around them tend to be rather unimpressive. I've chased a turkey through a school, played with snakes, petted a cougar, hung out with some bison, met some rhinos, had a goat try to eat me, and made friends with some cows, horses, dogs, and cats. I'm going to have to think about this one for a while there's bound to be a decent story in there somewhere.
Comment by Marissa Mayer on April 23, 2010 at 9:46pm
Haha well I don't know about whether this is a book winning tale, but I love telling it, so I made a new profile and everything!
When I was in Australia with my family a couple years ago, we spent a couple days in the appropriately named Kangaroo Island. We spent a day driving around and seeing all the scenery and whatnot... towards the end of the day we spotted a kangaroo not 5 feet from the side of the road and we pulled over. We rolled down our windows to take pictures of it and I had gotten out of the car for a better angle when it started hopping over. I totally freaked out because I had seen something on animal planet that told me kangaroos can kill men with their powerful kicks so I jumped back in the car, adrenaline rushing like crazy, terrified out of my wits. Our windows were still rolled down though, and we couldn't roll it up before it had stuck its head in. But as it appeared relatively harmless and very interested in us (and I came to remember that the scary kangaroos were around 6 ft tall (and this one was itty bitty), we eventually got out of the car for a couple photo ops. The saga was captured by photo and is in fact on flickr here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marikm1222/2187277715/in/set-721576037...
and the next couple of pics in the photo stream.
It was totally great and pretty much made my life.
Comment by Iavdiuk Valeria on April 23, 2010 at 9:29pm
Well, unfortunately I don't have any exciting encounter stories. But my grandmother has, that's why I'll tell it. Not for winning, just to entertain everybody =)
She told me the following: when she was young she went to a forest to collect mushrooms with her friend (I don't remember exactly, maybe it even was my grandfather). Suddenly they heard a strange cracking noise, and in a moment a wild boar jumped out of the bush. He ran with a threatening look right at them =)
In case you don't know, wild boars are quite aggressive animals. My grandmother is not a city type, she was born and raised in rural area, so she knew about all possible consequences of this rendezvous =)))
That's why they ran to a big tree, climbed it as higher as they could - and looked like a wild boar circle around the trunk. He left in a while, but my grandmother and her friend were to afraid to go away, so they sat on the tree for quite some time =)
Comment by sargentmm on April 23, 2010 at 8:25pm
I'm not sure if this is the first post, but my story:
In India, near New Delhi, I lived behind a forest. When most people think of India's wildlife, they think of Indian Elephants and Tigers, but one time when I went into the forest, I found a mongoose instead. While mongoose may at first appear to have the cuteness akin to a land otter, when they attack they are like vicious tasmanian devils. The Mongoose pursued me and my cousin, Adithea for fifteen minutes until we were able to find refuge at my house while the Mongoose waited outside until giving up his hunt and going to search for some other innocent kid's cafeteria lunch.
Comment by alice on April 23, 2010 at 7:50pm
@chris - Sorry, we changed up the rules. It's not that easy anyone. "Tell us about your favorite wild animal encounter. If you don't have one...make one up! Best story wins." Good luck!
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