A local rancher came into our small town’s cafe and excitedly told his domino playing buddies about his encounter with a mountain lion the night before. His bull was sick and the vet had moved it to a corral near the ranch house so it could be checked on easier. After dark the rancher heard the bull bellowing loudly and he walked to the corral to make sure the bull was ok. When he entered the corral and approached the bull he noticed blood and cuts on its neck.
Suddenly a sizeable animal bolted out of the shadows and over the top of the corral and hurried away. It was a mountain lion. And in the morning the bull had been clawed viciously and eaten on … and it was stone dead
Mountain lions are commonly called cougars or pumas. They are one of North America’s most reclusive predators, and they are proverbial killing machines. And in some parts of the U.S. they are are a problem.
Days before leaving for college an Idaho college student was bowhunting whitetails on opening day of archery season. He’d patterned a nice whitetail buck and was watching it in a field where he was waiting in ambush. Behind him, he heard a noise and thinking it was another deer, he turned; and saw a crouched mountain lion staring straight at him — the lion was only 14 feet away! With the small of the cougar’s back his only target, he quickly aimed and released his arrow. The lion jumped, turned and bounded away and dropped 80 yards away. Idaho Fish and Game cleared the incident as self-defense. The hunter didn’t get to keep the lion, but the event remains a lifetime memory.
Unlike many grizzly attacks where the bear is protecting a kill or its cubs, attacking mountain lions usually have one intention—to kill you. Young cougars, typically hungry males searching to establish a territory, are often the most aggressive. Old, injured, malnourished lions driven by hunger also have been known to become aggressive. Young children or small adults are the most vulnerable to wild animal attacks.

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