A mountain lion mauled a trail runner

…Officials said Tuesday morning that a necropsy showed that the man suffocated the animal…

Holy %&$%^&! That’s the kind of guy you want as a friend and definitely not someone you want as an enemy. I’ve got to believe the animal is in pretty bad condition. I just can’t imagine how many people could beat a mountain lion in hand-to-paw combat.

The man was fighting for his life and gives new meaning to “death grip” Amazing what strength we can muster up when faced with death.

“… the man told investigators he choked it and an examination of the animal confirmed that.”

One lucky guy.  I’m sure that mountain lion had all four feet engaged, and teeth.  It is amazing the man survived.

Go for run. Survive mountain lion attack. Hike out. Drive to emergency room. Get patched up. Take a nap.

I heard a report the lion was 1yr old, 70lbs.

Changes the perspective a bit (males grow up to 220lbs), but still a crazy incident.

A year ago one was caught just a few blocks from my house in the middle of San Francisco.

^^^ the majority of lions that have killed people have been juveniles well under 100 lbs. That is still a lot of cat. In California they rarely make it to 130 lbs. Ever tried picking up a 4 week old wild “house cat”? They can shred your hand.

Hard core guy!

But just to get this into perspective, in the US there have been 9 adult and 7 child fatalities since 1970. Only 2 of the adult fatalities were male, suggesting that larger size is protective.

Contrast that with, say, over 30,000 gun-related deaths and over 30,000 traffic fatalities per year, and you can see that it’s the humans that are out to get you, not the wildlife!

Glad he survived, but he suffered serious injuries.  I suspect he’s got a lot of permanent scars.

It’s fortunate that these are rare and without doing the research, I’m willing to bet more people are killed and injured crossing the street in cities.

^^^

Someone just died from walking in front of an oncoming train, but otherwise no recent pedestrian fatalities in Ft. Collins. There were 17  automobile fatalities in 2017, so once again getting to the trail head is the risky part of the trip.

The details –

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/15/695035064/man-who-suffocated-attacking-mountain-lion-tells-his-story

Interesting how first I hear about this on this site, a few days later on media, a day later on the network TV news

trail runner mauls a mountain lion.

A weeping lioness told our cub reporter that her year old son was merely doing what all lions do in the wild when he was viciously murdered by a man weighing far more than him….etc .etc.

(this is a joke. of course the man should have killed the attacking lion.)

good joke, wish I had thought of it

Instinctively, large cats attack from behind. Worse yet for trail runners who are seen as prey trying to escape. As a stalking animal, cats avoid eye contact to avoid detection while stalking and chasing.
Does anyone remember this on preventing tiger attacks? It might be an “ounce of prevention” or it might be easier to run trails with friends and just make a lot of noise, as we are told, to prevent startling a bear into attacking.

“The Beast in the Garden” by David Baron is an excellent read chronicling the clash between humans (and particularly trail runners) and mountain lions trying to cohabitate in Boulder, Colorado.