I took my dog “Thunder” down to the Bear river yesterday to hang out while I went fishing. Thunder is a Husky/German Shepard mix and he’s my best buddy. He loves the water and is becoming very good at not swimming where I’m trying to fish.
I talked to some of the campers there and 3 of them said they saw a mountain lion take down a deer on the other side of the river the night before last.
I continued up the river and tried fly fishing all the little pockets and pools while Thunder kept me company and went in for the occasional swim. I hooked one but he shook off the hook before I could land him.
I took a little break to check up on Thunder. He was laying down in a shallow pool down stream from me cooling off when suddenly he stands up and goes into a point position looking at the opposite bank.
I came over to him to make sure he wouldn’t chase whatever was over there. I scanned the far bank and couldn’t see a thing but Thunder was frozen still as a rock and watching something. Not scared, not whining, his hair wasn’t up. But he was dead still and not moving a muscle.
It’s was getting dark so I decided that I’d had enough fishing for one evening. About 6 hikers were coming back from their hike on the trail right above us so we joined them so we could all hike out in a group. Mountain lions will tend to stay away from groups of people.
So I never saw it, but I think Thunder spotted it. In any case, their tummies are probably full from that deer two nights ago. Still, it was an interesting evening.
Haven’t seen any updated stats on human deaths caused by cougars, but as of about eight or nine years ago the available data indicated that between 1890 and 1990 in the Western States of the U.S. and Vancouver Island BC, there were TEN confirmed such deaths.
MOST of those fatal cougar attacks occurred on Vancouver Island BC.
MOST of those fatal cougar attacks involved small children, regardless where the incident happened.
There have been several reported fatal cougar attacks in the Western States in the past fifteen years, largely because of increased human intrusion into historical cougar country. In the early 90’s a young woman was killed outside Auburn CA ( I believe it was Auburn ). A couple weeks after that incident, I happened into the U.S.F.S. ranger station near Placerville CA. I talked to the head ranger who had investigated that incident.
He pointed out that the victim made three mistakes - (1) running (2) alone (3) in known cougar habitat. He said that the victim literally never knew what hit her - she was certainly dead before she hit the ground. The classic cougar attack is from behind with a bite to the neck area that crushes the spinal column causing instantaneous death.
He also mentioned that at that time there were more cougars in the area around Placerville to Auburn CA, and more concentrated, than anywhere else in the country. Daily attacks on the fringes of communities in those areas on small pets made the developed areas something of a “fast food” alley for the big cats.
Hap made an excellent point - you’re probably lucky your dog is still with you, although curiously, it is not unusual for a pack of small dogs to tree a cougar. Go figure ??
>In the early 90’s a young woman was killed outside Auburn CA ( I believe it was Auburn ). A couple weeks after that incident, I happened into the U.S.F.S. ranger station near Placerville CA. I talked to the head ranger who had investigated that incident.
That’s exactly where I live. I’m in Weimar, just 5 miles uphill from Auburn.
There was a guy that was mauled pretty badly by a mountain lion in the state park near here (Elk Prairie) about 2 years ago. He and his wife walked the trail in the park on regular basis and for whatever reason, they were stalked and the man attacked. The wife fought off the lion with a ball point pen – poking it in the eye. It finally let the guy go but he was a mess and nearly died from infections and trauma.
The mountain lions weren’t very common in California but now, they can’t be hunted so they are popping up everywhere. In the town that I live in, they had to curtain recess at a local grammer school because there had been a mountain lion seen in the neighborhood.
A good book on the subject: “The Beast in the Garden” about cougar attacks in Boulder, Colo. Mostly about how the bunny huggers in Boulder declined to heed warnings or defend themselves.
While in CO. this fall I saw a PBS aired program about Rocky Mt. Nat. Park in which the narrator said there were more human deaths annually caused by moose than by bears.
This claim surprised me. Anyone have additional confirmation?
P.S. When I was in Del Norte CO. in mid-Sept., the barber giving me a trim said that local dogs had been disappearing and townfolk suspected a cougar. The town is right next to the i.8 million acre Rio Grande Nat. Forest, so lots of habitat for big cat.
Makes me a little nervous as I fish small remote streams in the area and always take my Brittany with me. Brave she is, but neither of us would be much of a match for a cougar.
I’ve worked in National Parks’ backcountry and seen 2. One was chasing a deer for a while in a clearing near my station … and failed to score. The other was just a few weeks ago … I was 20 feet above it and about 120 ft away as it emerged from low alder and jumped a braided stream.
Also found kill piles and seen fresh tracks dozens of times in snow and mud often during fall-spring near elk herds. At night it is the only animal besides grizzly that give me a creepy feeling. Two female ranger friends were hissed and followed for a while.
When I lived in Wyoming and fished the back country I always had a heavily loaded handgun on my hip or in a shoulder rig. If attacked from behind I don’t know how much good it would have been but if I saw the cat or bear first I at least had a certain means of defense. I still carry here in Missouri when I fish any place but the rare once or twice a year I fish the parks.
I think we are right at the top of the chain, except when we create the UNNATURAL situation where humans are removed from active participation. When we stop hunting these animals they lose their fear of people and then stalk us and things get all out of balance.
Yup, I think we should hunt every animal that MIGHT threaten us and hunt em to extinction. I want a safe, safe world in the wild and my goodness any wild animal that would prey upon domestic cows, sheep, goats, chickens etc. ought to certainly be wiped out. They (the predators) ought to know better and if they don’t, wipe em out.
Now, inner cities, and the wild beasts that exist there, that’s another matter.
Yep, the very idea that mountain lions account for 1 1/1,000,000,000 of a percentile of human deaths due to animals in the wild killing ppl is reason enough alone to exterminate them from the face of the earth then shoot, we might as well kill all the animals in the forest since hey, any of them at any time could become rabid and there you go. Chaos.
All seriousness aside though, DG is correct, we aren’t close to the top of the food chain…and if you go play in the woods, you pay respect to those that make their living there by killing and eating. If’n you think you’re in charge ‘out in the woods’, think again…'cause a gang of chipmunks could lay you to waste in no time…well, rabid ones I suppose…good grief…what an image…100’s of rabid chipmunks tearing you to shreds. Better kill them too. Yep, I’ve had some wine.
