A woman had a hilariously animated reaction to animals poking their heads through her car at a safari park as they reached out to snag some treats. 

Michaela Miller, 18, from Ohio, shrieked as an ostrich and bison tried to get some grub during the trip to Farm Walnut Creek with her boyfriend Toby Tatka, 18, last month. 

Her visibly distressed reactions – captured on video – show a terrified Michaela lean away from the window as she offers the eager creatures a snack.

In the clips, she can also be seen trying to dissuade the animals away and rolling the windows up, clearly unnerved by their keen appetites. 

Manic laughter can be heard as her boyfriend encourages her to try and pet one of the bison – which she hesitantly does. 

‘We were going through a drive-through safari and all the animals were sticking their heads into the car,’ she said.

‘I couldn’t put the bucket outside of the car or else they would try and steal it.’

Michaela added that she didn’t ‘expect the animals to go crazy over the food at all’. 

The scariest part for her was the ostrich, which aggressively roamed its long neck through the car window and aggressively pecked at the food. 

It looked like a starving dinosaur,’ she said.

The teenager added that although nobody was hurt, their vehicle didn’t fare as well as they did. 

‘No one was injured and neither were the animals,’ Michaela said.

‘The car left with a few scratches down the side, food all over the inside, and slobber everywhere.’

It comes weeks after a grandmother’s hilariously frightened reaction to animals in a drive-through safari sparked joy across the internet. 

Rhoda Cravens, 93, was caught screaming in fright as her daughter, 31-year-old Michelle Cunningham, took her to feed animals at the Wilstem Ranch Safari in Indiana. 

The grandmother is seen screaming in a mix of terror and joy as, one after the other, animals poke their heads through and start to eat from the bowl of feed she has in her hands. 

Video footage reveals that Rhoda’s hands are shaking as the huge animals come within inches of her, all as Michelle films on in glee. 

Meanwhile, Michelle’s young son is spotted fearlessly feeding the various animals.

At one point, the 93-year-old cowered in the car as a pair of docile emus pecked at the food bowl held by Michelle’s son. 

She also managed to spill a huge amount of food all over herself after an emu gave her a nasty shock. 

Despite her terror, she is also seen with a huge grin on her face after seeing the exotic animals.  

Speaking about her grandma’s reactions, Michelle said: ‘I know she doesn’t care for animals that much but thought it would be a fun experience for her.

‘I had no idea she would act the way she did but I’m so glad I was able to record her reaction.’

Mystery wolf slayer who leaves the dead animals displayed in Tuscan villages has shot seven of them and STRANGLED one in bizarre vendetta 

• Eight endangered wolves found dead since the beginning of November
• Killers left carcasses in village piazzas and on the steps of a theatre
• Sheep farmers thought to be behind the slaughters
  
• Decimated sheep flocks have ruined many farmers in the area
  
• Since being reintroduced, Tuscany’s wolf population has grown to 230
  
• Deaths have sparked a row between conservation groups and local farmers

By Hannah Roberts

Published: 12:21 EDT, 3 January 2014 | Updated: 12:31 EDT, 3 January 2014

Its medieval hilltowns, scorched valleys and free-flowing Chianti have made Tuscany a hit with British expats and tourists. But in recent weeks the peaceful vales have been rocked by a predatory serial killer.

Eight endangered native wolves have been found dead since the beginning of November, with three fresh corpses emerging in the last week alone.

In an apparently political gesture, the vigilante killer, or killers, have displayed the carcasses where they will be widely seen, in village piazzas, and, in one case, on the steps of a theatre.

All but one of the protected animals was shot, while the others were strangled. The slaughters are thought to be the work of an exasperated sheep farmer carrying out a personal vendetta after attacks on his flock.

Vet Marco Aloisi, director of a local wildlife recovery centre, said that placing the wolves’ bodies on public display appeared to be ‘a protest’.

Wolves were reintroduced to Tuscany from the mountains of the Abruzzo in the 1990s, using EU funding.

MFI furniture millionaire Paul Lister has similar plans to reintroduce wolves to his estate in Alladale, Scotland, despite the fact that they became extinct in the UK in the 17th century.

Wolves in Italy have been growing in numbers, as illegal hunting by farmers has become less common, and there are now an estimated 230 in Tuscany.

The packs usually live high in the Apennine mountains, but are driven down to farmland by cold weather or when they are unable to find enough prey.

In the past two years they have ventured lower than ever before. Wolves were responsible for 1000 attacks on sheep, cattle and horses in 2012, according to official figures.

Since then, a surge in the marauding attacks has decimated flocks in the coastal Maremma district.

In some areas production has halved, bringing farmers to the brink of ruin.

Regional projects to limit damage caused by wolves, including traps and specially trained dogs have largely failed.

Many sympathise with the farmers’ frustration.

Local MP Luca Sani, chairman of the Agriculture Committee of the Lower House of Parliament, said: ‘Killing wolves is a matter of great concern. However, it would be irresponsible to put our heads in the sand and not recognise that this action is a worrying sign of the exasperation felt by our farmers.’

Conservation groups have organised protests, calling for swift justice. James Bottinelli, spokesman for the A law Against Vivisection group in Grosseto, said: ‘Anyone who kills an animal is a criminal and must be stopped, but particularly in a case like this, where we are dealing with a serial killer.’

 

White Gladis was thought to have been pregnant when she first started ramming into boats, and has even taken her newborn calf with her on terror expeditions. 

The matriarch is among a pod of killer whales that have been attacking boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal since the summer of 2020.

The so-called ‘orca-uprising’, believed to have been instigated by White Gladis, has seen the species ramming and circling ships before wrenching away their rudders. 

Now, scientists believe the killer whale was pregnant all the while and, as the gestation period for orcas is 15 to 18 months, Gladis is thought to have given birth in 2021.  

Yet, rather than settling into motherhood, she continued her destructive endeavors, bringing her calf along with her. 

Commenting on her behaviour Mónica González, a marine biologist with the Coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals, said during a webinar: ‘She went to the boats with this calf, so she preferred to stop the boats rather than keeping her baby safe.’

Surprisingly, orcas typically look after newborn calves for at least two years after they’re born, providing them with safety and nourishment until they learn how to hunt.

According to Robert Pitman, a marine biologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, orca females have an average of five calves in their lifetime and are fiercely protective of each. 

The exact motive of her attacks remains unknown, but her peculiar behaviour has sparked theories from experts – the most prevalent being she may be acting out in response to a traumatic event.  

Gonzalez said on the webinar: ‘It was more important to stop the boats’ than to protect her calf, leading experts to believe ‘something bad happened’ to the mammal and that Gladis may have encountered a traumatic event with a sailboat.  

Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal who is a representative of the Atlantic Orca Working Group, told LiveScience: ‘The traumatized orca is the one that started this behaviour of physical contact with the boat.’

A ‘critical moment of agony’ made White Gladis aggressive towards boats – and this is now being taught and copied by other orcas, the biologist told LiveScience. 

It seems White Gladis has become a pioneer for other enraged orcas, as The Atlantic Orca Working Group has seen a 298% increase in orca-boat interactions from 2020 to 2023. 

Consequently, in the last few years, three boats have been capsized as a result of orca encounters and over 100 more have been damaged. 

Like humans, orcas pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. It’s certainly possible that White Gladis, the leader of her family, taught her calf and others in the pod how to damage ships in what she believed was a protective action.

It’s likely other orcas, especially younger mammals, may engage in the behavour out of curiosity or playfulness – ‘like a child playing with a football in the kitchen and breaking a window’ – but, Gonzalez explained that adults are more likely to interact with the boats out of trauma. 

The orcas show no sign of slowing down and, on June 22, three orcas attacked a boat participating in an endurance sailing race near the Strait of Gibraltar. Luckily, the vessel was not damaged and resumed the race following the encounter. 

A few days later, off the coast of southern Portugal, another boat was attacked. The boat’s captain Troy Torres responded to a Facebook post about the encounter. 

On the same day, a catamaran was targeted off Culatra Island by six orcas for 50 minutes, Bertrand d’Enquin, who was on the boat, wrote in a Facebook post.

He said: ‘One orca returned and batted the rudder one last time, as if to confirm it was broken. It was a harrowing experience.’

Some experts are now concerned about how the game will end, Deborah Giles, the science and research director at Wild Orca, said: ‘I am worried that people will take the situation into their own hands and use lethal or harmful tactics to try and, you know, get the whales to stop or at least, you know, stop an attack at the moment.’