Mountain lion follows dude for 6 minutes

[hollohas]

Video of the encounter from Utah. I bet he had to change his pants after this ..

https://notthebee.com/article/crazy-video-a-cougar-stalks-a-hiker-for-a-full-6-minutes-in-utah

[def90]

Yeah, saw that somewhere else earlier today. The guy should have been kicking rocks at it and being more aggressive towards it. The cats instinct is to follow something it thinks is running away.

[.455_Hunter]

The last cat we had hanging around the driveway after dark was greeted by me with a Maglight in one hand and .38 snub in then other, whooping and hollering while moving towards him/her.

Needless to say, it found another place to be real fast.

When you don't act like prey, they get confused and scared...

[BladesNBarrels]

Reminds me of 1998, Roxborough Park, that later was written up in Reader's Digest:


LOUVIERS, Colo., May 1 -- A savvy hiker is recovering from deep cuts suffered when a mountain lion attacked him in a Colorado park but rangers say poking the cat in the eye may have saved the the man's life. Roxborough State Park Manager Susan Trumble says the hiker was not killed or more seriously hurt because he did everything right in terms of staying calm and fighting back and I think that's why he's here today to tell the story.

She says the condition of 24-year-old Andy Peterson was upgraded to good by doctors at Swedish Medical Center. Wildlife officials are trying to find the animal today. The 30-minute standoff, which began when the mountain lion chased after Peterson as he ran away, came to an end when he jammed his thumb into the lion's eye and stabbed him with his pocketknife. Peterson, a regular visitor to the 3,200-acre park southwest of Denver, was nearly three miles into his hike when he came upon the big cat. Rangers say it was the first attack since the park opened in 1987. Finally Peterson was able to pull his Swiss Army Knife from his pocket and stab the animal, which caused the cat to momentarily retreat. Soon after the lion returned, Peterson's thumb-in-the-eye defense worked. Rangers say as the cat ran off, Peterson ran toward the visitors' center yelling, 'Call 911,' until a nurse came to his aid and another hiker went ahead to call for help. ---

[JoeRoss]

When I watched that video, my first thought was to pick up 2 rocks.
One to throw at it (a rock bouncing off the head usually detours most critters) and the second rock to smash his head if it attacks.
He-----finally-------throws a rock, and the cat runs away.

[izzy]

Noooope

[.455_Hunter]

Reminds me of 1998, Roxborough Park, that later was written up in Reader's Digest:


LOUVIERS, Colo., May 1 -- A savvy hiker is recovering from deep cuts suffered when a mountain lion attacked him in a Colorado park but rangers say poking the cat in the eye may have saved the the man's life. Roxborough State Park Manager Susan Trumble says the hiker was not killed or more seriously hurt because he did everything right in terms of staying calm and fighting back and I think that's why he's here today to tell the story.

She says the condition of 24-year-old Andy Peterson was upgraded to good by doctors at Swedish Medical Center. Wildlife officials are trying to find the animal today. The 30-minute standoff, which began when the mountain lion chased after Peterson as he ran away, came to an end when he jammed his thumb into the lion's eye and stabbed him with his pocketknife. Peterson, a regular visitor to the 3,200-acre park southwest of Denver, was nearly three miles into his hike when he came upon the big cat. Rangers say it was the first attack since the park opened in 1987. Finally Peterson was able to pull his Swiss Army Knife from his pocket and stab the animal, which caused the cat to momentarily retreat. Soon after the lion returned, Peterson's thumb-in-the-eye defense worked. Rangers say as the cat ran off, Peterson ran toward the visitors' center yelling, 'Call 911,' until a nurse came to his aid and another hiker went ahead to call for help. ---

"The Devil on Carpenter's Peak" in Outdoor Life was also a good telling of the events of that day.

[hollohas]

First of all, I would hope all of us here would be carrying a gun. I would have shot that cat the moment it started doing that freaky run, pounce, punch shit it was doing with it's paws. Hopefully the DOW would understand.

With that said, I'd personally be worried about bending over to pick up a rock to throw. Just bending over lowers your guard and may give a cat an opening to attack. Hell, I've had house cats wait until I bent over to attack me. I'd be very wary of bending over in front of a big cat.

Gun drawn + lots of noise and aggressive gestures is my plan should I ever be so unfortunate I run into a big cat.

I've run into many bears, they have always run off all scared like.

I had a young bull moose come at me and a buddy once while we were quartering a cow elk. A couple shots into the dirt didn't even make it blink. He stopped inside 10 yards, thought about what he was doing while we yelled at him. He then decided the two cows he was with could no longer see him acting tough with us and turned around to catch up with them. I started carrying something bigger than a 9mm in the woods since then.

Edit: for the record, I had only watched the shorter video at first. I just watch the longer one and realized the cat was defending cubs. That dude should have beat feet the moment he saw little kitties in the trail and not waited for mama to show up.

[.455_Hunter]

My father also scared off a cat my moving into attack position at dusk with a 158 gr .357 Gold Dot to the tree it was peering around.

[Zundfolge]

When I watched that video, my first thought was to pick up 2 rocks.
One to throw at it (a rock bouncing off the head usually detours most critters) and the second rock to smash his head if it attacks.
He-----finally-------throws a rock, and the cat runs away.

Yeah, when you crouch down to pick up the rock is when you're most vulnerable and most likely to attract an attack (because you look small). Although I am thinking he could have kicked a rock in the cats direction and it might have ran off then (but monday morning quarterbacking, 2020 hindsight and all that).


My father also scared off a cat my moving into attack position at dusk with a 158 gr .357 Gold Dot to the tree it was peering around.

Yeah, that's what I would have done had I been in that guy's position (but I'd also have had a gun on me).

[rondog]

As they say, carry - always......

[RblDiver]

Yeah, when you crouch down to pick up the rock is when you're most vulnerable and most likely to attract an attack (because you look small).
Bingo. The only time you should crouch is to pick up a small kid. Always try to look big, make deep threatening noises, hold your ground. (Source - My mom, who raised three from a few days old for about 7 years)

[osok-308]

There was a case last week where a mountain biker had hopped off her bike at deer creek canyon park and was followed by a mountain lion for several minutes. Some other bikers came up and it ran. Yet another reason to always carry.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

[Delfuego]

That cat was trying to scare off the guy to protect the baby seen in the first 30 seconds of the video. That's the behavior (so say some experts say). If it was hunting/stalking dude would never have seen it coming. I no expert, but makes sense to me. I would have chucked that phone at it, but I'm no millennial...

[UncleDave]

That cat was trying to scare off the guy to protect the baby seen in the first 30 seconds of the video. That's the behavior (so say some experts say). If it was hunting/stalking dude would never have seen it coming. I no expert, but makes sense to me. I would have chucked that phone at it, but I'm no millennial...

That is what the behavior was. But, it still could have easily turned into an attack if this guy had made one wrong move. That is why it is better to back away with a gun in your hand than a phone.