The Niles Star

First, I apologize to the Michigan DNRE’s southern cougar investigator.

By admin

Larry Lyons: The facts of cougar attacks

Published 11:22pm Tuesday, September 14, 2010

In last week’s column about the local cougar (or mountain lion if you prefer) sighting I said he hadn’t responded to my report. I’m in the process of changing my e-mail address and just now discovered he had replied the next day but it was hiding in the bowels of my computer.

He sent my photo of the tracks to his fellow investigators and was waiting for their judgment. Two weeks later he e-mailed saying all agreed the tracks were consistent with a cougar but it was too late to come look as they would have degraded by then. And they’re mystified that they don’t find physical evidence? Duh!

As expected, that column brought a number of responses from around the area relating other cougar sightings. The one commonality among these was fear of an attack. That prompted me to look into cougars vs. humans.

Incidents of cougar attacks, though rare, are sharply on the rise. One researcher reports that from 1890 to 1970 he could only find six substantiated cougar attacks in all the U.S. and Canada. Then from 1970 to 1990 attacks jumped to forty-seven. Since then attacks have continued to increase by over 25 percent every decade.

This can be attributed to two things. Starting in the late 1960’s many states and provinces banned cougar hunting and their numbers greatly expanded. At this same time outdoor recreation such as hiking, biking and camping in remote cougar country came into vogue. There are simply a lot more folks rubbing elbows with a lot more cougars.

Without good explanation, the vast majority of cougar attacks occur in just a few areas. Hugely in the lead is Vancouver Island, British Columbia, followed by California, then a particular region of Colorado. In distant fourth is a small area of Texas.

Most cougar attacks occur in relatively remote areas with two thirds being on children. Of these kids, more than 75 percent were either alone or with other youngsters and no adult in sight. The large majority of kids attacked are males. It’s speculated this is because boys are much more inclined to go exploring on their own than girls. Surprisingly, next in line for attacks are adult women as they, too, venture into cougar country alone. It makes sense that cougars would prefer smaller victims.

The age and health of attacking cougars vary but the majority is underweight yearlings. This is when they are just starting to fend for themselves and some apparently flunked the Hunting 101 class. When you’re starving, human a la carte ain’t so bad.

In 75 percent of the attacks the person never saw it coming so couldn’t do anything to prevent it. However, if a cougar should appear with fork and knife in hand the best defense is to respond aggressively by yelling, waving your arms over your head, throwing rocks or waving a stick. Fleeing nearly always triggers an attack.

If you are attacked fight back. The old playing dead trick used to fool bears doesn’t work with cougars. Nearly all fatal attacks by cougars have been children that were either knocked unconscious or went into shock and could not resist, which is the equivalent of playing dead. The cat invariably continues its mission for it’s not protecting its young like most bear encounters, but securing dinner.  Nearly all attacks on healthy adults are not fatal for they’re able to fight back with the cat eventually giving up.

All that said, cougars should be at the bottom of your boogey-man list. In the last 40 years there have only been about 70 cougar attacks with the majority occurring in the aforementioned areas. Just 15 were fatal.

Here in the Midwest a cougar attack would be extremely unlikely. How many cougars are in Michigan? 2? 20? 200? Take your pick. What are your chances of ever being near one? Then, considering our abundance of natural prey, what are your chances of that particular one being starving?  I’d place the odds of you getting hit by a comet over being attacked by a cougar. On the other hand, I never say never.  As for Fido and Garfield, well — all bets off there.

Carpe diem.

Larry Lyons writes a weekly outdoor column for Leader Publications.

He can be reached at larrylyons@verizon.net.