If I’ve ever seen a look of death, this would be it.
Cougars (also called mountain lions and pumas depending on location) are one of the most prolific predators in North America. While they can weigh over 150 pounds, they walk near silently through heavily wooded areas, closing the distance on prey before they’re even noticed, and by then, it’s typically far too late. There’s an old saying that goes “if you see a mountain lion in the wild, there’s a good chance that it saw you first.”
Because they’re such a reclusive and hard to spot animal, getting an accurate population estimate is nearly nearly impossible, but Nature.org puts the number of mature breeding mountain lions at less than 50,000 worldwide.
Which is why for the most part you don’t have to worry about running into one of these guys by accident, but one unlucky shed hunter in British Columbia found himself face to face with an absolute until of a cougar a few years ago. Historically, mountain lions roamed coast-to-coast, from the Canadian Yukon all the way down to the tip of South America. However, as the United States expanded in the 1800s and 1900s, aggressive predator-control programs and habitat loss effectively wiped them out of the eastern half of the country.
Today, the North American population is a tale of two halves: The western United States (states like Colorado, Montana, Idaho, California, and Utah) and western Canada boast an incredibly healthy and thriving mountain lion population. While it is notoriously difficult to count an animal that acts like a ghost, wildlife biologists estimate there are roughly 20,000 to 40,000 mountain lions currently living in the United States. But aside from a highly endangered, isolated population in the swamps of southern Florida (called the Florida Panther), there technically aren’t supposed to be any breeding populations of mountain lions east of the Rocky Mountains. However, young males are incredibly nomadic. In recent years, trail cameras have been capturing these cats pushing farther and farther east into the Midwest (places like Nebraska, the Dakotas, and even Missouri and Iowa) looking for new territory.
A full-grown male can weigh up to 170 pounds and stretch 8 feet from nose to tail. Their hind legs are heavily muscled, allowing them to sprint up to 50 mph in short bursts, leap 15 feet vertically into a tree, and broad-jump 40 feet horizontally in a single bound. Just freak athletes any way you want to slice it. Pure carnivores, their primary food source is deer (mule deer as well as whitetail) and elk, although they also eat smaller mammals, as well as livestock and the occasional pet if they can snag one off a back porch. A single adult mountain lion will typically kill and eat one deer every week to ten days. After making a kill, they will drag the carcass into the brush and cover it with dirt and leaves, returning to feed on it over several days.
They rely entirely on stealth to survive, as you will see in the video, and it’s actually quite frightening how calm and collected they can be as they move through the woods. They will quietly stalk a deer through the timber or wait perched on a rock ledge, dropping down to deliver a fatal bite to the back of the neck. Equal parts incredible and terrifying, this video from British Columbia, Canada, captures it all.
While out looking for shed antlers and setting up trail cameras near the Campbell River, near Vancouver Island, this guy found himself no further than 20 meters away from one of these beasts. Of course, it’s an incredible sight to see, but just one look and it’s easy to see why this would make anyone uncomfortable. To make matters even worse, he didn’t have a firearm as a last line of defense, meaning there was pretty much no chance of survival if the cat made a move.
“I was out on a walk looking for shed antlers and setting trail cameras. I looked down at a shed antler and was taking pictures when I felt something watching me. I looked up to see the cougar starring at me at 20 meters. I attempted to scare the cougar away 3 times. The cougar returned and finally, after a 3rd attempt I was able to slowly walk out of the area to safety, no cougars were harmed.”
Absolutely terrifying… just staring an absolute hole through that man, right into his soul. As if to say, “I could kill you right now, but I won’t.”
Fortunately, he was able to escape with nothing more than a wild story, but man, that could have easily ended very, very poorly.
