I nominate the badger. For sheer nastiness. A few years back I saw 2 coyotes tangle with a badger. The coyotes were outnumbered. One of them left bleeding. The badger went on his way as if nothing had happened.

Last night, close to sundown, I was going for a 4 mile walk. I have lawn measured in acres. (Makes the Wife happy!) Damn badger has been digging in the lawn for several nights. The bastard was out and in the open, so I ran back in the house, grabbed the first rifle I came to, which was my 300 WSM. The badger was heading for a line of evergreens that line the south border of the yard. I got off a snap shot just as he went under one of the evergreens. I shot behind him. The branches cover the groud so it was perfect cover. I would not walk between the trees, because he could get from tree to tree without me seeing him and it also put my legs in reach of his jaws. I went around the west end of the row. The other side is a field recently planted in sunflowers so I could see he did not exit that way as it is bare ground. I started down the tree row. A few trees in I heard a growling from under a tree. That SOB came out from under that tree and came at me teeth bared, growling and meaning business. I realized my mistake in grabbing that rifle when I threw it to my shoulder to fire. Range was less than eight feet and the scope was 6X. I pulled the trigger without a clear target and undershot the beast. The bullet hit in front of his face. He stopped a beat or two giving me enough time to bolt in a new round. He came on agin. The second shot wasn't an better, but once again he stopped his charge. Another round bolted home. It seemed each time he heard the bolt close he came on. This time I fired without using the scope. The bullet, a 180 grain Nosler BT litterally ripped him in two. Still his front end came on dragging the rear. But it was over. I saw his heart spilled out on the ground and beating, and then it quit.

I've had other confrontations with badgers in the past that led em to beleiev that if a badger was as big as a grizzle, could and would swollow the grizzle whole. They are just plain mean and they are born that way.

[ 06-18-2003, 20:44: Message edited by: RogerK ]

I agree with you 100%. Pound for pound they have it.

We have a small badger population in my area also. We also have wolverines to witch are cousins of theirs. Pretty much the same but the wolverine is a real prick when it comes to a downed animal. Your come back to animal in the morning and the damn wolverines have pissed all over it with their musk. Not even a hungery bear will touch it after that. Just walk away.

Alaska Tundra Wookies

Sorry tundra wookies are 2 legged,unless it's
closing time

[ 06-18-2003, 22:02: Message edited by: JeffP ]

I witnessed a Badger ran over by the front wheel of a 58 chevy & it recovered with a vengeance.We were cruising tree rows hunting birds when the badger jumped out & we pursued him for a few hundred yards. He eventually grew tired of the sport and came at the chevy with his teeth bared. I sprang back to avoid the little shredding machine & saw him go under the wheel from a distance of 2 feet. It didn't even phase him, he was back in the game in no time. However he dissapeared down a hole before we could get a shot.

I know some will disagree, but I was going to post this even before I saw badgers were the subject here.

Since the thread title mentioned animals, in general, and not just wild ones, I'll have to nominate my bitch dachshunds who, of course, are built to dispatch the nasty badger.

Granted, they're not as strong bodily as the badger, but I'd put their jaw strength right up there with the badger's. More importantly, while the badger is a barreling one-minded brute, I can almost see the wheels spinning (fast) in those dogs minds as they formulate a way to position themselves for a coup de grace on whatever they're after.

Intelligence usually tips the scales over sheer brute force and anger. The Achille's heel of the badger is that they seem to get so pissed off and high on aggression. It's like fighting a drunk who's twice your size: it may have it's hairy moments, but if you keep your cool, your wits will carry you to victory...usually.

RSY

p.s. Speaking strictly of wild animals, I'll readily agree with the badger as set forth in the posts above.

Wolverine

My X-wife and her mother... oh. You didn't say meanest...

I would think the wolverine too, but wouldn't want to debate the point with a badger. Then there are otters. All friendly and fuzzy, kinda the prototype Disney creature. You ever watch a pair or three of them kill and eat a 'gator? Make lightning look slow and pit bulls seem gentle.

RSY, I would have to agree about the dachshunds. My wife used to raise them and I've never seen a dachshund back down from anything. They're not even afraid of Dobermans believe it or not. And a healthy dachshund is one of the fastest things I've seen, I was amazed at how fast those thing are, not for great distances mind you but in close quarters, you definitely don't want to piss off a dachshund.

For wild critters I would have to say the grizzly. An enraged grizzly definitely gets my respect.

If you ever come face to face with a coastal Brown up in Alaska, you will redefine toughest immediately. The Badger family will win out when it comes to gutsiest, but it ends there. A coastal Brown, that is all hyped up at you being there just about defines toughest, in North America. The last one I disturbed ran straight up the mountain away from me, I watched him for 20 minutes, running up the mountain. Took me a half day to go as far as he made it in 10 minutes. Caused me to redefine "enough gun" while roaming about in Alaska. Truly amazing animals. This might sound like an underhanded shot at them, but it is not. They have my respect.

I once saw on the Discovery Channel, a badger fought a cougar away from his den. They have a temper. But I'd have to say the wolverine beats it.

As for the awesome creature, hands down, the grizzly. The first time you look up hill at one staring down at you from 40 yards away--it is a truely humbling experience, guaranteed to put the fear of God in you. They are truely awesome creatures in every sense of the word...awe inspiring, not just the skateboard/stoner usage. I've never been hit with such a blend of fear, respect, and excitement at once. Just the sense of power you get. Very cool.

In the pound for pound ability to miraculously cling to life category,I'd say the feral cat has that one sewed up comfortably. Them bastards can take a lick,like nothing else.

In the rip-snortin' copious amounts of horsepower and unpredictable demeanor category,I believe the Brownie to be without peer. The Polar Bear may take the cake,but I've never been in their presence to weigh them in comparison.

I've had Brownies scare the shit right out of me and that ain't somethin' a guy forgets. If a Badger or Wolverine tipped the scales at a half-ton and better,they'd get my vote but alas they aren't in that league,nor even close.

Your mileage may vary..................

FarRight, You are so right. The first time you come upon one that close is a feeling you can't put into words. Makes me wonder when I see people post that they wouldn't have a problem going after one with a .30-06 and 165 grain bullets. Up close and personal they'll be praying for a bazooka.

Somehow I never thought of an Otter as fierce. Learn something everyday.

Another animal or two for consideration: Elephant seals, and sea lions.

The first time you walk around a corner, and realize you are looking UP at a sea lion bull, who doesn't want you in his house, and he weighs around 1500 pounds, well, it's a unique experience.

Another is walking out to Ana Nuevo Park, and seeing a Sea elephant on the path. It sort of dawns on you that when he stands up, he's over 8 feet high, and, weighs 8000 pounds.

Don't piss'em off...

s

[ 06-23-2003, 01:51: Message edited by: Socrates ]

I watched my oldman fight a weasle off with a axe a few years ago. That little bastard wouldnt back down. My pops won the fight with a final blow to the back. It got pretty wild because it was in the dark in our cabin and the little bugger was playing rope a dope. I was holding the flash light and my oldman was in his underwear. I was laughing my ass off.

A gopher.

When I was young, we trapped them in the fileds. I pulled one out of the hole, trap and all. He was about torn in half, but his spine was still intact. He held off a Rhodesian Ridgeback and two other mongrols. I had to finally finish him with a shovel......took three whacks.

Wolverine ate damn near half my brothers sheep one night while it lay up on the mountain gutted out. Glad we weren't fightin him over it, without a bullet, he'd of won for sure. I think that's where the Wolverine don't take no $hit from anything, bears know it, everything knows it. Badgers sound much of the same way too.

That story about the Brown running over the mountain, seen that one before too. Seen one over the shoulder in the bush too. Guttin and packing Moose in swamps by yourself, in the dark, with a headlamp, well, Bears are something you always have in the back of your mind but have very little time to watch your own back while doing. A little edgy at times. You know you'll probably never hear or in that situation, see it comming when it hits you, so be prepared to grab fur and don't loose hold of the pistol while emptying it in him... prepare for the worst, pray for the best.

The thing about Bears is, they're FAST, POWERFULL, DON'T LIKE SURPRISES, and you never know when you'll run into one they're so damn silent! They also don't like to die quick, and run faster than hell! Thank God most of them are as *well* manored as they are and keep to their own, for the most part, or living and hunting in bear country could be far, far, far worse than it usually is.

He might not be the absolute toughest or gutsiest but a big old boar coon at least deserves an honorable mention. I don't have much experience with badgers but I have chased coon with dogs a bit. Pound for pound they are the scrapiest wild animal I have seen. One on one they can whip just about any dog. But pound for pound the absolute gutsiest animal I have ever seen was a little toy poodle that my family used to have. He would take on ANY body he did not care who you were or how big. Nobody walked in my sisters' bed room at night or this dog would light into them. He stood all of about 10" high and probable weighed 2 lbs. soaking wet.

Ask Saeed about coons...

Feral cats, pound for pound, could well be the toughest animals.

Claws, instinct, and teeth, plus agility, jumping etc. make em REAL scary...
s
PS
Now I know why lions and tigers get soo much respect...

Last year, in Namibia on Gras Ranch, the resident one year old Jack Russel terrier ran into a Have-A-Hart cage, and killed a wild cat trapped in it.

That's tough.

[ 06-24-2003, 16:02: Message edited by: wayne nish ]

I watched a National Geographic Special once about the badger. We don't have any around here but I would have to agree with the original poster, the ones they showed were I'll tempered savage little bastards. The narrator said they would pick a fight with a bear over a piece of food and not think twice about it, basicly fearless except for people. In the footage I saw one jump a wolf and mall him pretty good over a fresh kill. After the fight I swear the thing let out a Tim Taylor Tool Time grunt and the proceeded to feed. Kinda left you with idea thesethings had sort of a dark sence of humer

[ 06-24-2003, 16:38: Message edited by: TC1 ]

A young male ferral boar in the 200# range.

They all got something to prove in their sick, twisted, little walnut sized brains.

In normal situtations he's is just nasty & ignerant. However, get his blood pressure up a bit with a few cur dogs and he's is hell on wheels.

They just don't give shit about anything when they decide they want to scrap.

I've seen that "Bring it Son" look on more than one occassion.

Pound for pound....My wife at a "closeout sale" possibly the meanest animal on the planet...I'd rather face a wounded grizzly than tell her she couldn't go to the sale!

Mike R. LOL

Easy one - Hitlery Clinton. Nasty, hairy beast.

Badgers are tough, no doubt about it, but our dog Ace is tougher. On top of that, he's two and a half times as big and at least half as smart.
Ace is a dog of uncertain lineage with claims of Boxer and Lab being made. Most comments though brand him as a pit bull whether he is one or not. He walks with that bulldog swagger and has that silly bulldog smile. He's mostly white but with one brown ear and a big black nose. His head is heavy and wide but no wider than his neck. He goes about 70 pounds.
Ace is remarkably tolerant of other dogs. It's almost as if he feels he has nothing to prove. Probably a good thing.
He has shown himself to be of value as a protector of the place against all sorts of varmints and has treed cougars singlehanded (or pawed). He trained several generations of coyotes to keep quiet and stay away from his turf. He'll grab a skunk by the ass and kill before he gets sick. But back to the badgers.
His first encounter with a badger occurred while we were in town. When we got back he came grinning up to us, as usual, and I noticed he had a lower fang broken off. A closer look showed lots of lacerations under his chin and on his chest. It was some time later that we saw a big old badger hobbling along on three legs with one front paw curled up under his chest. He got along fine on his three legs as long as he lived.
The second badger didn't come off so well. Ace and I were taking our customary walk up a trail in back when we came face to face with another badger. Ace ran at the badger which responded with a charge of it's own. Both stopped short of contact though and tried the growling, staredown approach. This worked better for Ace, apparently, for the badger turned and ran down a nearby hole. Now, this was where Ace's possible mental handicap made itself known. With no hestitation whatsoever, he ran over and shoved his head down the hole. This was certainly an error in judgment, for the badger immediately latched onto the dog's nose. Against any other dog this might have been a good move but all it did was piss this dog off! Ace let out a combination roar and howl- somewhat muffled by the attached badger- and shoved hid head down further and got hold of the badger. Anyone who has ever tried to pull a badger from a hole knows it's a tough job indeed but the dog did it. It took him about five or six hard tugs and the 30 pound badger popped right out of the hole. The badger was upside down and had a firm grip on Ace's nose. Ace in turn had a solid hold of the badger's snout. He commenced to shaking that badger just as a terrier would a rat and finally it let go of his nose. Ace dropped the badger but when it started to turn away he got hold of it by the front leg, high up by the shoulder, and started shaking it again. All this time both animals were snarling constantly. Sometimes sounding angry, other times, hurt. After some more shaking Ace dropped the badger again and I finally managed to get hold of the dog and fling him behind me. The badger was still snarling but the front leg was nearly torn off and he was certainly done for. I remembered the rifle in my hand and, with some regret, finished him off. This was a big, heavy badger and he was certainly tough. Just not tough enough. Regards, Bill.

I agree with Bill Leeper on this. Animals just do not get any tougher than PitBull Terriers and American Bulldogs.

The men who helped rid this area of feral hogs used a dog of no more than 60 lbs to do the catching. The dog grabs the hog by the ear and within a couple of minutes the hog is pulled down and is stabbed in the heart by one of the handlers. The dog was outweighed 4 to 1 in some cases.

My old 50 lbs pit bull Jed, who died of old age a couple of years ago, had no trouble with any coon he wanted to kill up till just a couple of weeks before he died. Unfortunately, he made no distiction between dogs that should be welcomed and those that were wild strays if he got his teeth on them and he killed more than a few. Nor did he distinguish between good and bad people and would greet the preacher or the local serial killer in the same overly friendly way.

[ 08-07-2003, 12:53: Message edited by: RuffHewn ]

Sorry guys, but I'd put a Great Pyrenean mountain dog up against any dog. Designed to kill bears, they grab em by the throat, and rip their guts out with their back legs, and my favorite weighed 150 pounds.

However, if I took my 4 pound feral cat, and scaled her up, she'd look JUST like this, but black:

http://www.serveroptions.com/humor/thecat.mpg

I just can't get over how much damage they can do, so quickly, with their claws and teeth.

I took my little baby for a walk tonight, and she got scared by a bug zapper. I have 4, 3/4 inch cuts on my right hand,cut in less then a 1/4 second.
I was trying to teach her to fetch a mouse, and, jumping for the mouse I had in my mouth, I now have a 1/2 inch cut on my chin, in an instant, and it was deep, and didn't stop bleeding for awhile.

Sides, cats, like lions, hunt in packs. THAT is a really scary thought...



s

I vote for the wolverine, its mean enough that they can and will drive bears away from kills, I have seen a black bear take on one and he left with his tail between his legs, that wolverine tore him up.

We have had sea lions get on our fishing boat, when those orcas come in and man can those big SOB's do some damage, I've seem big crab pots get knocked aside by those things, and they are just plain nasty.

Bears should win the most feared though, I'm not realy afraid of a wolverine, or a sea lion as they're kinda slow, but that bear can out run, out climb and just out badass you in any catagory you want to put up a fight in

[ 08-07-2003, 13:40: Message edited by: Dark Paladin ]

Never met a feral cat that could stand up to a plain old dove load. Sure are hateful things.

Can't help myself, gotta respond. Wolverines and badgers are mean and tough etc, but there's something even smaller around here (are we counting Hawaii in NA?) that even the feral cats won't mess with: Mongoose. Anything that eats Cobras for a living should get some respect. Don't know how they'd match up with a badger, though I expect the mongoose's extreme speed/agility makes up for size.

Janet Reno. I rather face a brown bear than that bitch.

I have to vote for the badger! I grew up in the farm country of Minnesota and used to hunt jackrabbits in the winter. Once when I was 12 or 13, my dad and I were out jackkrabbit hunting with our springer spaniel and ran into a badger along a fence row of a corn field. I shot the damn thing 7 times in the neck and back with a 22lr before he crawled back in his den. My dad had restrained the springer so he wouldn't get his ass tore up by the badger. We put the dog back in the truck and waited for a few hours, but the badger didn't come back up that day. But, he wasn't dead! We went back to the same spot the next weekend, and lo and behold the damn thing was still alive. This time I was prepared!!!! I had my 20 ga shotgun loaded with slugs! I shot the badger from about 30yds, but it took "2" shots to put him down. When we got home, my dad skinned him just to find out where I had hit him for sure the week before. There were three bullets in the neck/shoulder region, and the other four were in the upper back, just behind the shoulders. I never shot at a badger with a 22 again!

I think M16 nailed it right on the nose.

Just be glad that there is no such thing as a 50 pound preying mantis.

Excellent thread! It's amazing how many tough, ballsey creatures there are on God's green earth. I cannot distinguish between toughest, etc., as there are too many variables. I've put two 20 gauge slug rounds in a badger that wanted in my brick house and almost did it; I've surprised a 20+ pound gray feral tom by grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and pressing him to the floor. (That, by the way, was a MISTAKE! and I have the scars to prove it.)

Stories of big browns. I read on the Alaska Living list of "The most dangerous place on earth" referring to the iceberg "calving" when salmon are tossed onto shore in Alaska, and it's legal to pick them up and keep them. IF you survive the coastal brownies.

I've seen Dachshunds absolutely murder badgers, and come up, meekly wagging their stubs or tails, and licking their chops, looking like "ho hum, another day on the job..."

And then there is the mongoose. I've only seen them hunt on TV, but my very favorite account of them is fictional. The introduction to Rudyard Kipling's "Riki Tiki Tavi" absolutely personifies the heart of a hero that beats in their little chest.

How about this: 1. Find a litter of feral piglets. 2. Grab one, and maybe two, and shake them about a little just to get the correct noise level generated. 3. Make things right with God and prepare to meet him when momma hits you at 40 mph.

HI,

BEAR. Kev

Most dogs used for moose here in Sweden will bay a badger, and so will a good GSP or GWP. I don't think I have ever heared about a dog that will bay a wolverine...

The nastiest animal on two legs is my wife every time I tell her I'm spending more money on a new gun or a hunting trip. Boy she gets mean!