It seems that every time you turn on the news these days, you hear of someone else being attacked by a cougar, or a mountain lion, or whatever you want to call it. Like bears, cougars get more dangerous the more humans come into contact with them. They are just like any wild animal in that they would rather avoid you, but when people start building closer and closer to cougar populations, attacks are bound to occur more. There is no such thing as a cougar that has it in for humans. That is just media hyping up the situation to make people scared so they watch the news more (which is pretty much what they do in every situation.) That being said, however, there are ways to avoid a cougar attack if you take the proper precautions, and in this article, I will be telling you how to best avoid a confrontation with these wild cats.

If you are hiking on some forest or mountain trail and there are signs a cougar is near, (broken branches, strong scents, maybe even hearing it stalk around in the bush) the first thing to do is not panic. Unfortunately, cougars are cats so they don’t usually like to show themselves and would rather ambush you or pounce at you from out of sight. If you panic, you may trigger this response because the cougar will think you are prey and will act on its predatory instincts. So, whatever you do, do not run. Fighting is better than running in most wild animal encounters. If you happen to spot the cougar, you need to make yourself look as big and threatening as possible. Raise your hands above your head, start yelling, and maintain strong eye contact. This is usually enough to make the cougar run away. However, if he (or, more likely, she) decides to attack you, your only choice is to fight back. Grab a rock or whatever you have on you and use it as a weapon (whenever I go camping or hiking, I always have a nice fixed-blade hunting knife on me, just in case.) The cougar is not used to prey putting up a strong fight, so you may be able to escape with your life if you fight back. Also, if the cougar attacks, your neck will be its target so you need to do whatever you can to prevent her from getting at your neck.

I hope that no one reading this actually encounters a cougar in the wild, but if you do, at least you are somewhat prepared.