Man, you folks are inspiring me to load up on bear spray, or 357 magnums, or something.
Some friends and I were camped out on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming, which happens to be my hometown. We were in our teens, and perhaps ... psychotropically enhanced this particular night. The University farm was next door, and for some odd reason there had been experiments done on cows and calves, where they weaned the calves way too early to see what the reaction from the mother cows was. As the night wore on, the cows were incessantly mooing. There were moos coming from the left, moos coming from the right, moos coming from the center of the universe. Nothing but moos. Loud moos, quiet moos, the smell of moo. It was too much. We resolved to go quiet these cows with cottonwood branches, if that's what it took. As the four of us climbed over the fence "Stand By Me"-style, we were saved by the bell. My friend's mother called from the house that a storm was blowing in and we should all come inside. We aborted mission and went back to the tent.
As the storm blew in, we were too errr concerned to go inside the house, so we hunkered in the tent all night, talking about how the cows were probably going to eat us. Lightning, hail, crazy winds, and still loud moos ensued. It was the weirdest and craziest thing I've ever experienced.
A few years later, the same group of us were in Savage Run Wilderness Area, which is part of the Medicine Bow National Forest, and came upon a mother moose and several babies. We turned tail and ran, and Laurel/Hardy style ran right into a large black bear and some cubs. We did a T-formation NFL style "get the hell out of dodge" move, and ended up laying awake all night in the dome tent. I remember a splashing in the beaver pond about 3am, and my blood ran cold.
I've since moved away from Wyoming, mostly for all those reasons.
Incidentally -- sleeping in my hammock last night out here in the GA woods, I had several bats circling me. It is not a pleasant feeling to have bats around. Not sure why, but it isn't.