brianhughes wrote:

Day Hiker wrote:Any of those mountain lion fatalities or attacks on people who were over 6 feet tall and well over 220 pounds? 200 pounds? Even 180 pounds?

Thought so. I'm safe.

Don't be so sure. Check out this book, which relates how a mountain lion goes about killing a healthy, full-grown, 6-point bull elk, which, at 600-800 pounds, would be about four times the weight of a big lion. The gist of the story is on page 167-169, which unfortunately isn't available on the google preview. A great book by the way, at least to those of us who grew up hunting elk in western Colorado.

On the wild edge: in search of a natural life ... By David Petersen

http://books.google.com/books?id=otSYBMy2JMoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false

I agree it's possible. I don't think I am completely invulnerable to mountain lion attack. And I know if a 150-pound cat attacked me, it could possibly kill me before I got a chance to pound on its face and eyes enough to chase it away.

My use of the word "safe" only means I consider the probability of someone my size being attacked by a mountain lion so infinitesimally small that I can't imagine ever modifying any outdoor plans out of concern for it. If I weighed only 180 or 160 or 140 pounds, I might feel differently; I don't know. Maybe I still wouldn't care.

I can't say the same about bears, grizzlies in particular. There are places I would avoid because of the possibility of encountering a 600-pound grizzly. It doesn't matter how big you are with a grizzly; they don't care if you are 120 or 320. You're not even supposed to fight back when you're attacked by one of those things because it's futile and likely counterproductive. All you can do is lay there and hope the bear isn't attacking for predatory reasons, because if he is, you're getting killed and eaten regardless of what you do. But with cats you always fight back, and you stand the chance of chasing it away by doing so. And even though I understand that a smaller cat could kill me, for whatever it's worth, unlike bears, no mountain lion weighs more than me. I just like those odds better.

The information I have acquired over the years tells me that mountain lions are far less likely to attack a large person than a small person, like a child or an adult the size of a child. On the linked page, all four fatalities were involving small people, the size of me when I was something like . . . eleven. The full list of attacks probably includes some larger people, but, again, I'm just not concerned, because of the probabilities involved.

This doesn't mean I don't think I could be attacked; it just means I don't concern myself with it because I consider it so very unlikely. If I ever did encounter a cat that appeared as though it were going to attack, I would certainly be scared. Even if I was under the impression that the cat couldn't kill me, I would be injured for sure, and that's reason enough to be scared.

KathyW wrote:I'm not quite 5'2" and travel solo in the mountains fairly often, but I still haven't been eaten by a mountain lion. I do prefer ridges to gullies - there's just something uncomfortable about being down in a gully alone in mountain lion country.

Only person I ever knew personally who was killed by a mountain lion was a 5'2" woman skiing alone near Banff....

MoapaPk wrote:I heard a talk two nights ago, which included a section on encounters with animals; the worst encounter was with a pack of 7 feral dogs. Who'da thunk it?

I've often said (mostly truthfully) that the only two animals that make me really nervous are grizzly bears and domestic dogs. With dogs being far more dangerous, in terms of number of attacks per year.

So far I've been bitten twice by dogs and hit three times by cars. I stopped worrying about mountain lions long ago...

josegarcia wrote:

Peter Bysterveld, a 23-year-old, 210 pound, 6' 3" tall student at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Calgary, was attacked at about 4:30 p.m. MDT by one cougar of a pair he and his friend Sarah McKay encountered while on the last leg of a long hike.

dude, really. i know you're a bad a$$ and all, but i reckon a hungry mountain lion would just considere the extra meat as a bonus.

Nice change of thread title to make it personal. You must really miss P&P.

I guess you're too much of a fucking retard to read the part where I wrote that I understand a mountain lion could kill me. The issue is about them being much less likely to attack a larger person, not much less able to kill one.

[off to the penalty box...]

I really do think that being bigger does help reduce the odds of mountain lion attack. But if I got to 250 lbs, I would have no escape option but trying to roll downhill.

Mountain lions are not stupid; they know that they risk serious injury or death if they confront an elk or a horse directly. But they are also very instinctual; like house cats, when the signs of "prey" are triggered, they go into a different mode. When they see bicyclists or skiers going at a fair rate, not paying attention to the sights around them, not looking like typical bipedal humans, their brains may click to "appropriate targets."

I believe one of the best ways to avoid negative encounters is to appear "un-prey-like." Typical prey does not wear a headlamp, does not make loud aggressive noises, and does not face the potential attacker.

Day Hiker, josegarcia is a subtle troller, who likes stirring the pot. I usually find his posts amusing, because I can see that he is trying to get people to react ("Sierra Club: phriend or phoe?"). Think of the old Star Trek episodes.