Not necessarily. Although most cougar attacks have involved small children they have been known to take down adults as well. At that point it would be a fight for your life:
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Of course. And don’t forget rabies and other mental health or animal disease issues that could be present. Rabid animals are unpredictable, no matter how much of an “aggressor” you act like. But on the balance, these animals are not necessarily the de facto predator on humans. I am calling that assumption into question.
In August we were camping in the Colorado Rockies. About 5 AM I heard a bear snuffing around right outside my tent. Freaked me out. I’m a flatlander from KC, and had no idea what I should do - especially since we had two more tents with my kids in them. I finally poked my head out to look around and saw… nothing. Nothing at all. I was up for the day, though, and sitting at the campfire waiting for everyone to wake up I heard my daughter snore a bit and realized that she was the bear.
So not really like your story at all, now that I think about it…
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I’m surprised that the Annihilation referenced in the title was the movie. The book was much better, and, I thought, more widely known.
Doesn’t seem like this sound would need much help tbh:
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Rabies has next to nothing to do with carnivore attacks on humans. Sometimes emaciated animals will take more risks than healthy individuals though. Wild animals are unpredictable, period.
That depends on where you reside. On Vancouver Island where I lived for twenty years, cougars (we don’t call them mountain lions here) are statistically the most dangerous predator. A few years ago my neighbour’s toddler was grabbed by a cougar at the local swimming hole; miraculously the animal dropped the boy as his grandfather gave chase into the trees. Several people in the town I lived in have witnessed their pets being plucked from their yards in broad daylight. I don’t mean to scaremonger either. You are still more likely to die the next time you step into a car even if you regularly hike in cougar country. But facts are facts.
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I have an intense fear of Mountain lions. We were camping in Hidden Giant provincial park, right on lake superior with our then 4 and 6 year old kids. We kept finding deer carcases right at the water’s edge. We camped in the sand, and when we woke up the next morning there were HUGE mountain lion tracks all around our tent. That was our last night there… I assume the mountain lion had great luck lurking in the trees behind the beach, waiting for deer to come to the water’s edge for a drink, and then bam, tasty lunch. It did not take much imagination to see one of our small tasty children making equally tempting prey. I didn’t let them get more than 5 feet from me while we packed and left.
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I am 100% certain there are mountain lions in the BWCAW in Minnesota by the way, if they are in Sleeping Giant, they are ranging to the BW. Mn DNR denies it. Bears, Wolves, no problem, don’t worry me at all. Moose and Mountain Lions worry me, but at least moose don’t want to eat me!
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I was stalked by a mountain lion while walking a dirt road in the Gila Wilderness (New Mexico) shortly after dark. Just a few twigs cracking next to the road, but the intense smell told me what was there. Every sense went to maximum and every hair on my body stood up. I had to fight the impulse to run. Shivers.
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I didn’t say it hasn’t happened. Just statistically not a factor in understanding carnivore attacks, at least in North America.
Oh, OK, I’ll just take your word for it that rabies is statistically not a factor.
Weren’t you the Sherlock Holmes who just recently spouted “facts are facts”? Oh waitttttt… facts are facts but not when YOU are saying them. I get it.
I was walking through a national forest in Northern Japan. The walkway was essentially a boardwalk over deep swampy ground about 4’ wide going in either direction.
As my wife and I were walking deeper into woods and we saw a couple going in the opposite direction. One of them had a noisemaker app on his cellphone going as “bear repellent”. About 20 minutes later as they were past us, we heard this loud low toned growl. We both quickly changed direction. I felt so much safer when I started to see other people. I figured at that point if a bear was till out there, it would be able to find alternative food sources besides my wife and I.
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I second Tamsin’s second. We have foxes around our neighborhood but I’d never heard the male’s cry until one night when I was taking out the trash to the end of the driveway on our unlit street. I thought something with leathery wings with hooked claws along the edges was about to swoop down, wrap me up and carry me off into the night. Freaked me right out.
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Also, did she not have some Metallica on her phone?
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Not sure if it scared the cougar as much as it liked her choices in music and didn’t attack out of respect.
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Holy crap that sounds like two kids playing monster.
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Here’s a recording of a mountain lion in heat, and yep – pretty blood-curdling.
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thats what I was thinking. I had suspected a mountain lion before reading the punchline and sure enough.
I have a senior citizen cat and a year or so ago he started every once in a while going from completely silent to a death howl until giving up because I haven’t caved into his demands. he does 5 or 6 wails before giving up. because I live in a tiny apartment with noisy but easily set off neighbors I now try to distract or intimidate him and that leads to only 2 or 3 wails. =/
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that mountain lion scream on youtube initially did not impress me because it has been suggested that it sounded other worldly and that sounds exactly like a plain old big cat. it was near the end however that I heard a smidge of human in its sound and suddenly remembered how alley cats in heat can have people freaked out that there is a crying baby outside their window XD
