If you found yourself in this situation, would YOU know how to handle it?
A cougar followed a man for over 6 minutes during his run through Slate Canyon near Provo.
For some crazy reason, the guy actually filmed it as it happened. It wasn’t the smartest plan, but it gives us the opportunity to talk about what happened.
Yashar Ali does a really good job of explaining everything, so here’s his thread describing what’s happening on the video and what lessons the rest of us can take from what went right and what went wrong.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CGNM6qUnWqG/
1. This video of a cougar "escorting" a hiker is going around & most people are just tweeting out the part where she's behaving aggressively
What's missing is the part where he approached her kittens/cubs
Also want to use this opportunity to talk about safety around large cats pic.twitter.com/Iq1BEzUQkP
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
3. The reason I used the term "escorting" in the first tweet is because that's what she's doing. That cougar is trying to push away someone she believes to be a threat to her cubs/kittens. She wants to get him out of the area. Her intention is not to kill him or even injure him.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
5. I spend a lot of time convincing my friends they don't need to be frightened of animals and posting just a portion of videos like this doesn't help. People will assume this is how cougar's behave instead of knowing the full story which is the hiker approached her cubs/kittens!
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
7. Ok and now for safety. Here comes the sanctimonious part because people are going to get annoyed when I criticize how he handled the encounter and say "easier said than done" or that he was in the moment and scared.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
9. The hiker handled some stuff correctly. He didn't run away. He walked backward while facing the cougar. But he mishandled a lot of stuff.
First, if you're dealing with an encounter like this and you film it and end up getting injured or killed I have no sympathy. Stop it.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
11. Usually you can drive a cougar away by making yourself look bigger and screaming aggressively at them in a sustained fashion. This hiker has a conversation with the cougar the whole time. He says, "No! Fuck you dude" – silly.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
13. If making yourself look bigger and being verbally aggressive doesn't lead a cougar to run off (again, our hiker didn't do either), then the next step is to throw what you can in the direction of the cougar. 95% of the time this will do the trick.
(keep reading)
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
15. What drove me nuts about this video is that hiker was actually in the perfect environment to grab something. There were tree branches at his level and at certain points there were rocks to his left he could have grabbed without bending or crouching down.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
17. So what do you do if you throw something near the cougar and they're still approaching you? That's when you have to throw something at the cougar aggressively and intend on hitting it. Don't worry, you're not gonna kill the cougar with a rock or branch.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
19. BTW why did I repeatedly say kittens/cubs instead of one or the other? Because Twitter is awful and if I said kittens people who don't know better would have tried to correct me and if I said cubs, then people who prefer saying kittens would have corrected me
Awful website!
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 13, 2020
It’s easy to get caught up in the illusion that the wilderness is safe just because it has been civilized with things like trails and amenities.
The wildlife doesn’t care if you think you’re going for a run in a State park or vast tracks of untamed wilderness. It plays by its own set of rules.
If you’re out there, and don’t know what they are?
Well, that’s on you.
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