Cougars

[Heroique]

Here’s the cougar that was tracked and killed in the foothills near my Seattle home (2018).



Days earlier, it attacked two thirty-something mountain bikers, killing one and severely injuring the other. The bikers did everything right, but sometimes that’s not enough. (They didn’t have bear spray, and that may have worked.)

BTW, one issue that needs repeating is how incredibly rare any kind of cougar attack is, even as sightings grow more common with rising population densities. We have about 2,500 cougars in Washington state, but the bicycler’s death was only the second fatal attack in 100 years. (And in all of North America, over 100 years, make that about 25 fatal attacks and 120 non-fatal ones.)

In all my time in Wash. state’s wilderness, Cascades and Olympics, I’ve never seen or heard a cougar, but I’ll venture to say that hundreds of cougars have probably seen me … from a scary-close distance.

[Alan Klein]

LOL!
There's an old story about a hiker reporting to a Ranger that she saw a rattlesnake on a trail and that her guide book said that rattlesnakes aren't found above 9,000'
The Ranger informed the hiker that that particular rattlesnake obviously hadn't read the book.

He should have told her to keep climbing.

[Drew Wiley]

The highest rattler I've seen was around 8000 ft above Roaring River in Sequoia, on a dry slope. Two of them the same afternoon. They're lighter color and much more docile than the big Diamondbacks down in the foothills. Shooed it off the trail with my walking pole. Didn't want to get close enough to see if it was wearing reading glasses or not, or if it knew the rule book gives right of way to pedestrians.

[Wayne]

Here’s the cougar that was tracked and killed in the foothills near my Seattle home (2018).



Days earlier, it attacked two thirty-something mountain bikers, killing one and severely injuring the other. The bikers did everything right, but sometimes that’s not enough. (They didn’t have bear spray, and that may have worked.)

BTW, one issue that needs repeating is how incredibly rare any kind of cougar attack is, even as sightings grow more common with rising population densities. We have about 2,500 cougars in Washington state, but the bicycler’s death was only the second fatal attack in 100 years. (And in all of North America, over 100 years, make that about 25 fatal attacks and 120 non-fatal ones.)

In all my time in Wash. state’s wilderness, Cascades and Olympics, I’ve never seen or heard a cougar, but I’ll venture to say that hundreds of cougars have probably seen me … from a scary-close distance.

They did everything right...except for what they did wrong. Like biking past the unseen lion (looking like running prey...joggers and bikers beware). And then the victim ran when the animal attacked the survivor. It came after him and killed him.

[Heroique]

They did everything right...except for what they did wrong. Like biking past the unseen lion (looking like running prey...joggers and bikers beware). And then the victim ran when the animal attacked the survivor. It came after him and killed him.

I’m not so sure riding mountain bikes on a road open for recreation near Seattle is taking on too much risk. As for your source, it sounds like it might be one of the day-after sensationalist accounts I remember being everywhere in the metro-Seattle media.

Here, for contrast, is the key part of a considered look of the incident by the Sierra Club:

While the pair initially scared off the lion using what Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) police say was correct behavior—yelling, standing their ground, and even hitting it with their bikes—it returned and attacked again, biting Sederbaum. Brooks fled, and the cougar released Sederbaum, who went for help, whereupon it returned to Brooks and killed him. “The cyclists realized they were being stalked and adjusted their behavior accordingly,” Earthwatch chief scientist Cristina Eisenberg says.

I keep thinking bear spray – but it sounds like this beautiful animal was a very rare, especially aggressive, take-no-prisoners cougar.

[Alan Klein]

Maybe you should carry a small pistol.

[Drew Wiley]

Why ??? I've lived, walked, and slept in cougar habitat for decades. So have countless generations. I've never even heard an Indian legend of a mtn lion killing someone. I'd be more worried about Homo sapiens.

[John Kasaian]

Legends about panther attacks have been passed down in other parts of the country though.
Regarding mountain lions, the only cougar attacks we hear about are the ones on the internet.
OTOH, should a mountain lion successfully enjoy it's brunch, who would ever know unless a corpus is found?


It's not all that rare the people go missing in the mountains and are never found. What happens to them?
Two legged and four legged attackers can be equally dangerous if you're unaware of your surroundings, just as the weather can be a killer.

Be careful, be prepared and stay alert.

[Vaughn]

Or in many of those cases, scavengers, or a 4-legged predator coming across an injured, dying, or dead treat.

[Drew Wiley]

John - pumas didn't get anything at the Donner Party. Guess they weren't invited.