Edit: So what I’m gathering is that they’re not so dangerous that they will strike out of nowhere, and people need to be alert of their surroundings constantly. They almost always get seen if there is going to be an interaction, and the vast majority of the time just walk away. Is this correct?
I’m scared of mountain lions(but not bears) because one time I saw one and it walked away like normal. But then 15-20 minutes later I saw it again, behind me a ways. It had been following me. I stood and watched it. It decided to walk off again. But I stayed watching it and followed a little bit till I knew it was leaving for good. I’ve seen countless bears since I was a kid and they’re always scared and run. Only a few mountain lions ever. But that experience is what convinced me to always carry a gun. Even if I’m not hunting. There could be something hunting me.
Cats really are the ultimate hunters. Polar bears are terrifying but something about big cats is just so much worse
Chances of me encountering a Polar bear are practically non-existing, as would encountering a Mountain lion for that matter, but I know I would be infinitely more scared for a Polar bear.
The cat might be hungry, might be just curious but will probably leave you alone.
A Polar bear though? If you see it, it already knows about you (heard, smelt or seen you) and you can count on 1 of 2 things happening from that moment on. 1) it is contemplating how to hunt you or 2) it is already actively hunting you.
The thing is, for a Mountain lion there are possibilities of food besides you. You are a big risk for that lion and it will most probably go for easier options. For a Polar bear it is a must to hunt you as the opportunities to get food on polar regions is infinitesimally smaller than on other hunting grounds where Mountain lions would hunt.
Mountain lions would get my hair to stand on end and make me alert but I walk on nonetheless.
Polar bears would send me running for the nearest concrete hut and hope the door will hold.
Whatever you do, don’t pspsps.
True story I swear: My BFF had this skill where if they sang Elvis tunes, after a while their cats would start humping each other. We hypothesized that this was because my friend had a warbling kind of singing that sounded like cats mating. Anyway, we go to the zoo and are at the lion’s den. It’s a couple terraces separated by a moat and a fence. And brilliant me, I say: hey, what if you start singing your Elvis tunes? My friend’s like yeah and starts singing.
Fam that really gets the lion’s attention. I mean, the lion is staring right at my BFF while they’re singing. The lion is tense, like right before cats leap into action. And suddenly that moat doesn’t look all that wide. The kicker is my BFF had a terminal illness and no doubt would have loved to die being being boned by a lust-crazed lion. Anyway I finally convinced my BFF that if the lion got free they’d probably have to shoot it, so they stopped singing and we fled. I sometimes wonder if that lion ever thought of my BFF again.
Surreal, but they freaked out and ran. The yearling black bear I ran into one time stared at me and waved lol
I heard it snarl before I saw it. It was chasing a deer, noticed me, stopped and just sat there staring at me about 50 yds away across a little valley, not menacing towards me, more curious. I put my hands on my head to try to “look big”. After a while of us staring at each other, I lost my nerve and backed away and then sprinted away towards a nearby street. It didn’t chase. Based on the ease with which it leaped up that hill after the deer, it obviously could have caught me if it wanted to. Funnily enough I met someone else on the trail just afterwards, told him there was a mountain lion, and he was like "where?"and ran towards where I saw it… This was in southern California.
I was hiking up a mountain alone through the snow, took some photos, went to hike back down.
That’s when I saw fresh mountain lion tracks in the snow maybe 50 feet behind me.
It had stalked me uphill, lurked while I was enjoying the view and then fled, maybe just when I turned around.
Still gives me the creeps to this day.It ran away
This is typically their response. FiL has mountain lions around his property. They don’t want anything to do with us.
Pspspspspspspspspsps
Actual mountain lion, only once, despite growing up in a very rural area where they inhabit. It was laying across the road as I was leaving my parents’s house. As I got closer it stood up and calmly walked into the bosque.
I have had many more encounters with bobcats. Mostly involving my dogs chasing one up a tree, or finding one in a tree and barking at it.
TIL a new word. I’m just curious, do people commonly refer to it as ‘the bosque’ around there the same way we might say ‘the woods’?
There are no ‘woods’ along the shores of the Rio Grande, only bosque.
Si.
A friend of mine got chased by a lynx for a few hundred meters while on his bike. He had been fishing and most likely the lynx was starving and got the scent of the catch, but it gave up pretty quickly.
I saw her, she saw me, we both walked rapidly in opposite directions.
