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Supposedly the KA-BAR knife got its name from a trapper who used one to fend off a wounded bear. The letter he sent in wasnāt very legible, with ākill a bearā looking like āka barā. But they used it to trademark name their knife.
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Apparently the catās prayers to Cougar-God went unanswered.
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āThis is why I always have a knife on me. Surprise cougar and bear attacks.ā
āDidnāt you say you live in Kansas City?ā
āI said - āSurprise cougar and bear attacks.āā
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That was my thought, too. Good thing they found the body to make sure, either way. As for how the guy could strangle it, adrenaline must help - like in this case:
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āDonāt call me a mountain lion, Iām a cougar!ā
āSo youāre a sexually active middle aged woman?ā
'Er, thatās right, Iām a catamount!"
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A terrible loss in times of dwindling species other than human. We need to leave these great animals alone, without ārunnersā getting into their roaming their territory.
Having touched and caressed a fully grown Cheetah before, it disturbs me to read about any Feline being killed. There are over 7 billion people on Earth, some of them with high disregard for our Mother Nature, that it should be the other way around. But then, they would kill the Cat.
And yes, by all means:
Save yourself - throw your toddler at it.
No, stay out of the last remaining territories for these irreplaceable Big Cats. If thatās not possible, wear a Salamander suit of sorts. Like bright contrasting colors the way poisonous critters wear. Some people know that Cats are intelligent beings. So, bring treats with you to throw at them.
Just do whatever to prevent another important predator from going exitus.
A necropsy performed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife determined the animal did not have rabies, but other diseases have not yet been ruled out because CPW has not yet completed its investigation.
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Teach cougars that humans are a source of treats, and should be approached? I donāt think you know how cougars work.
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I hear a bit of a jerking knee here. The encounter took place in what is essentially suburban parkland. If you hold that suburban parkland ought not to exist, then what human lifestyle do you prescribe?
You also use scare-quotes around ārunnerā. Apparently you believe that the runner intentionally headed off into his local park in order to seek out wildlife to kill with his bare hands?
Adolescent pumas wander, sometimes for hundreds of miles, in search of new territory.
I donāt know what the solution is when they wander into suburbia. Some puma encounters happen a very long way (link is to a 2011 story of a puma from the Dakotas being struck on a freeway in Connecticut) from the beastsā āhome rangeā (whatever that means for a creature with the habit of going so far afield). But as long as we humans have territory at all, and as long as these beasts exist, weāre likely to have them in our territory. The narrative that wildlife encounters are all because weāre in the beastsā home is occasionally flawed.
Throwing treats at the creatures would be an excellent way to get them killed, by habituating them to humans. I know this is true of bears: āa fed bear is a dead bear.ā
Alas, a big predator that is attacking humans is already habituated to a human presence, and likely unsalvageable. A bear that is eating from suburban garbage cans probably has lost the skills needed to survive in back-of-beyond, and has lost the fear of humans enough to be a dangerous neighbour. Relocation efforts for such a creature are almost always a failure. Either the beast turns up in human habitation elsewhere, or else he starves. This is surely humansā fault for making the creature dependent in the first place, but I havenāt seen any better solution offered for these particular individuals than euthanasia.
And I want to see top predators stick around just as much as you do. That will require careful management - not knee-jerk reactions.
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I mean, Iām a bleeding heart for sure & do not approve of killing for sport, butā¦
If you insist, itās on your conscience.
And, what teknocholer said:
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And sorry about drawing examples from bears. I know, bears are not cats. But any wildlife can become habituated to humans. And I donāt travel often in the modern range of Puma concolor. I do, however travel in country that has the occasional problem with overpopulation of Ursus americanus, and observe bear tracks and scat on almost every trip into the nearby wilderness areas. (Evidence suggests that the place would be greatly improved by the reintroduction of bigger wolves than Canis latrans oriens and bigger cats than Lynx canadensis but even in a six-million-acre wildland, thatās a tough sell politically. It looks as if the coyotes are gradually breeding themselves back into timber wolves, though - and acquiring behaviours to match the appearance.)
Iām glad the runner lived because Iām not heartless. This is nonetheless a tragedy.
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I understand your point but I have to quibble with your description of the location. This area is not a local park in some suburb. This is designated open space on the side of a mountain. There are established trails running through the park but itās right on the edge of a wilderness area near a reservoir and tucked up against the foothills. The city of Ft Collins is off to the east. Lots of animals including bear, coyote, foxes and mountain lions live here. This is their home, not ours.
In this case this narrative is entirely accurate.
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I bet the deep head scars will help the taleā¦ 
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No seriously, how did you get that scar? Auto accident?
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As a friend, I hope youāll take it without rancor when I say that joke was tasteless.
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Itās actually a fairly similar dynamic to where I live. I donāt live in spectacular mountains like the Rockies, but itās mountainous terrain, and anything flat enough to settle was settled a long time ago. Any recreational green space of any size is either just something that was too steep to farm or build on, or is sucking swamp, or is right up against wild forest - just as that county preserve has Fort Collins on one side and RMNF on the other.
A county preserve where I do a lot of short walks (because I can drive there from home or work in 15 minutes or cycle in 30) has a āMcMansion Hellā neighbourhood right on one side of the road, but Iāve seen bears and coyote in there (as well as deer, marten, mink, fisher, otter, numerous smaller mammals, and some pretty spectacular stands of hemlocks). Canāt recall whether Iāve ever seen sign of a cat in there, but we certainly have Lynx rufus and Lynx canadensis in this part of the world.
This preserve isnāt a huge thing, itās maybe a square mile, total (the county says itās 256 ha). It isnāt nearly enough habitat to support even a single bear (a typical black bear will range over anywhere from 2000 to 20000 ha). But thereās enough public and private open space adjacent to it that the bears definitely are able to pay a visit, to forage and to fish. It also isnāt enough space to support a human party for overnight visits, so camping there is forbidden and I visit there only for day trips.
I guess Iām in the beastsā home when I walk there, and I treat the place as if it belongs to them and Iām a visitor. It still feels like suburbia. I can recall last winter getting the hairy eyeball from some toddlerās mommy (or nanny, maybe, but the nannies are usually nicer) who was pushing the kid in a stroller down the long driveway to one of the McMansion mailboxes. She obviously saw the scruffy guy across the street putting on snowshoes as a threat, and neither I nor my car was nice-looking enough to be in that neighbourhood unchallenged! (I was dressed for snowshoeing, not for a social call.)
It surely isnāt an expedition into the wilderness. (I know. I do those too. Iāve done a 220-km solo hike through the Adirondack Park, sometimes as far as 25 km from the nearest road.) When I see people running in the preserve (and I do, thereās a nice six-mile loop around a canyon rim thatās popular with cross-country runners), I certainly wouldnāt label them ārunnersā with scare quotes and imply that theyāre in an area that should be off-limits to humans and deserve to be killed by the local wildlife!
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I know. I was facetious. Shouldnāt do that. Itās just that I truly adore these big Cats. Thus, maybe there could be a solution where the Cat is not strangled to death?
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