Women pinned cougar during 'hand-to-hand combat' to save friend trapped in its jaws
The cat dialed back pressure through its crushing jaws, and the friend was able to pull away, fellow cyclists said in an interview one month after the incident east of Seattle.
A group of Seattle-area cyclists who helped one of their own escape the jaws of a cougar recounted their story this weekend, saying they fought the cat and pinned it down.
The woman who was attacked, Keri Bergere, sustained neck and face injuries and was treated at a hospital and released following the Feb. 17 incident on a trail northeast of Fall City, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement.
Bergere said she spent five days at an area hospital and was still recovering.
Fish and Wildlife Lt. Erik Olson called the actions of her fellow cyclists "heroic" in the statement. But the extent of the cyclists' battle with the 75-pound cat wasn't immediately clear then.
It literally just tried to kill a person on a bike trail. Being known to attack anything isn't a reason for us not to defend ourselves.
I'm aware we need predators, but we also need to not get ambushed by big cats. It might be too of the food chain, but we're higher.
Next time it might attack someone who can't fight it off, like a child or a smaller group.
A cougar is not worth a human life, no matter how good they are for deer conservation.
Interesting question arises from that - is a cougars life worth humans not venturing freely in forests (basically 'the sacrifice of not being able to use that bike trail', intentionally, for the good of the wildlife)?
And attacking a group of not that slow humans sounds a bit like distress. I don't know anything about that situation, don't claim to, just saying that disease and perhaps demeanour aren't the only two things that can result in an attack like that - an attack which does sound like an attack-to-kill-for-food situation (the part where it didn't let go of the face for 15 minutes) and not just for the sake of attack.
I think this is an excellent question to put out loud. I’m sorry someone downvoted you but it really is worth asking and thinking about. To be clear I am not saying that I think the answer is “yes.” But this sort of thing isn’t without precedent.
Story time: I used to be a very avid cave explorer and I enjoyed it more than just about anything. Caving is a tough sport to do though because many caves are on private property and the landowners often refuse access. So a lot of caving is done on national forest/park land. Around 2006, an invasive species of fungus arrived in the USA from Europe. This fungus infected multiple species of bats with a high mortality rate but didn’t affect humans (White Nose Syndrome is the disease name). Over the next few years the spread of disease was well documented, predominantly along the known migratory routes of the affected species.
In reaction, the National Parks and National Forest managers started closing off access to caves on public land, as a ‘precaution.’ Caving as a sport essentially became nearly impossible for most people overnight. This isn’t a mainstream, popular activity like mountain biking so nobody outside of cavers gave a shit and there wasn’t much of an uproar and the policy stood. The national park where I spent most of my time still has all caves closed to recreational caving.
So the people who manage these public lands absolutely do ask the question of when animal lives outweigh human use and I think that publicly asking those questions is a good way to make sure we don’t have the decision made for us without having a chance to weigh in.
I really miss caving. /rant
Yes, that is an even better case for what I meant (also sorry about the situation - I try to comfort myself that some professionals will go film & document stuff like that so that millions of us can enjoy it somewhat but without additional damaging effects).
At some point we just get to the tipping point. And Im also not saying that the answer is yes (rather 'it's complicated and highly nuanced'). Like, if there were only 10 mountain lions left in the world Im sure a poll would show ppl would want to save the cat & restrict human movement. The other way around too, if human population fell to a few million or whatever, the perception of individuals "value" would def change.
I want to encourage (I always try to do this) everyone to think about how hard would be to determine that line even if we had all the data, knowledge, & perspective on the matter. And ofc we dont.
Living without or with progressively less & less biodiversity, unique habitats, etc is something we are already doing for future generations. And how do you explain to alpha or beta gen that people in the past wanted to go hiking in the woods unprotected so for that convenience & 0 risk tolerance no large predators exist anymore.
Since my grandparents were born humans went from like 1.7 billion to 8 billion people atm. We need to accept we can't live beyond our means for long and that immediate effects of our actions are not all of the effects our actions have. Literally not all of us can go bike on that mountain trail. And it's a luxury.
Mountain lions while not endangered are considered near threatened. So it's not like they're deer, but conservation is still needed to protect them. Hell for the longest time they hadn't been seen in the Southeast. It's only recently that they're making a come back, and a lot of that is from massive conservation efforts.
You're absolutely right though, do we end up telling the next generations that we pushed further into their territory and killed most of them, because we wanted to be safe from danger while out on a day hike... unfortunately people in this thread seem to say the answer is yes, that's exactly what they're ok with.
True.
Im sad when this* happens where there are other options or minor adjustments that would go a long way. Bear attacked some sheep? Politics decides there are obviously too many bears in "the area" (0 experts said that, the exact opposite in fact), not the village expanding into the woods. Spend the extra expense to build a proper fence around the sheep? Don't be silly. Research how to be safe from mountain lion attack (neck guards, pepper spray, maybe a horn/whistle) & cohabit the area? That's nerd talk.
*killing the predator, "removing the problem" (from 'the problems' ancestral home) instead of (re)searching for a solution
Also, I imagine (I was never in a situation like that), while unimaginably angry at that particular feline individual, I would be mortified hearing that gunshot (after it was clear "who won"), def would blame myself for the rest of my life.
It's like people that go mountain hiking in flip-flops and/or just a shirt & then have to be rescued by helicopter(s, plural if they are in a grup or there are several injured). Happens all the time around here. The analogous response in this case would be to get rid of the mountain, or lower it, or pave it, etc - but since those options are not as easy as shooting a gun (& I guess there is no hunt enjoyment?) we spend money to educate people, give fines to people that need rescuing because of unpreparedness, etc.
And 'paving over a mountain' would get rid of the mountain (the point of going there), much like getting rid of wildlife would do to the woods. If not for the education & cultural significance, we might try to get rid of the bees too, for our safety (but not actually 'our', just the current gen in charge).
Glad that someone sees it, a bunch of people in this thread sure as hell don't.
Also a caver who was effected by the policy, and while I miss the hell out of spelunking, I love bats more. I have 2 small caves on my farm and have never been in them for that reason alone, also have multiple bat boxes I've built for them as well. My need to cave outweighs the need for these creatures to exist.
I totally hear you and respect your decision. That said I think very few of these decisions are as binary as it seems when presented by authorities:
I'm not saying there shouldn't have been a total ban on that. You're absolutely right, they should have allowed exceptions. This was also an underhanded law to stop idiots from going into caves and completely trashing them too. You can still get in a lot of caves with owner permission and being part of a club that is known to the state. It's no longer the go into a cave at any time and do whatever you want anymore though.
In general, we advise people not to go to places where it might upset or endanger animals or risk an encounter than might cause the animal to need to be killed.
If and when humans go there anyway, we still prioritize human life over the animal.
It just doesn't track to say "if you go into the woods, we'll let you get eaten by cougars".
This woman didn't deserve to die for riding a bike in a nature trail.
The animals motivation for the attack is only relevant for conservation efforts. Is there a disease we need to be aware of? A behavior shift, or a famine?
For the purposes of protecting people, we can't let an animal that has actively attacked survive, but depending on why it attacked we might be able to intervene to prevent other attacks and help other animals.
Oh, yeah, I understand that, I was thinking more like prohibition, for conservation.
Yeah, totally justifiable to restrict people's movements, give them stuff fines or even jail time for conservation.
If push comes to shove though, the person's life takes priority over the animals.
I personally wish it wasn't that way.
Agree to disagree. I can name half a dozen off the top of my head worth a fraction of a cougar's life and their removal from this timeline'd immediately improve humanity on a global scale.
Yes, let's just kill everything because we want to take the land for ourselves. Being way the fuck up in Mt Lion territory is risky, you shouldn't be bringing a 6 year old out there anyways.
Yes, killing an animal because it attacked a human is exactly the same as killing everything to clear the land.
You can look up where the attack happened. It happened on a marked trail outside a city, about 30 miles from Seattle. Not exactly the middle of nowhere.
Or are you saying that you shouldn't take children outside of major metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest?
30 miles from a city can go from suburbs to wilderness quickly out there. And yes killing a near threatened species because you want to go hiking in a safety bubble is exactly what you're advocating.
No, killing a specific animal that attacked a human is what I'm fine with.
Don't be an asshole and tell people what they believe without having the decency to even get it right.
Again, the more we encroach into their territory (which we already heavily have) the more the attacks will increase...so yes you are fine with killing them so you can feel safe while taking a day hike. The problem here is you're not able to understand what you are saying, you're only able to think to step 1 of the process and not actually look at the long term of it.
No, the problem here is that you're unable to not argue against what you want to argue against, even when that's not what's being said.
Guess what dumbass? You can be fine with saying we shouldn't encroach on their territory, and should scale back how much humans are actively in wild spaces for conservation reasons, and also think that animals that attack humans pose a threat and are justifiably killed.
No matter how hard you try to make responsive killing the same as preemptive killing, they're different and you just sound deluded.
No we got where we are with wolves and other predators by continually pushing into their territory and killing them because they attacked a human or livestock. We didn't actively hunt them like the NA bison. So yes you lot are a bunch of ignorant fucks, who look at the outdoors like it's your personal playground and it needs to have bubble safety nets for you.
https://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Gray-Wolf-Populations-in-the-US.pdf
I really like how you live such an unnuanced life, where it's impossible to simultaneously believe "we should leave nature alone as a first line of defense" and also "this cougar just tried to eat someone, it'll probably try again".
Obviously someone who believes it's a good idea to shoot a cougar while it's human victim lays bleeding a few feet away has exactly the same feelings about a good old fashioned 1800s preemptive wolf cull.
Seriously, reread your own fucking source again. We culled wolves preemptively, not one wolf at a time after an attack. Are you dense?
But go ahead, keep fighting your straw man.
Given you think we shouldn't be in nature, I take it you live in a major metropolitan area and never leave?
They expanded, and killed as they expanded... exactly what we're doing right now. Stop being a dense fuck. I also work with large animals and own a rescue farm, so no I don't exist in some tiny fucking bubble like the lot of you children do.
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse, because I can't actually believe that someone can go this long without actually seeing a difference between proactive and reactive.
You're talking like I'm saying "let's clear out the woods from these pesky predators", when what I'm talking about being acceptable is about one per year. (There have been 127 cougar attacks in the last century)
I also find the level of anger you have weird, given that you seem to be actively engaged in demolishing and intruding on the wild spaces you seem to want everyone else to keep out of.
Reactive...kill mt lion because it attacks meat lunch boxes while out on a day hike cause people are prey.
Proactive....March into Mt lion territory, get attacked...kill mt lion cause it's near you and your supposed to feel safe in the woods....
Both situations have people killing predators because they're doing predatory things.
Since you clearly didn't understand it last time...127 attacks are because we kept marching into their territory and "reactively" killed them.
Lol you a fucking idiot if you think that, I've turned my farm into a wildlife habitat and do rescue, my anger is from dipshits like you who want safe spaces to exist which involves killing predators because they did what predators do...hunt and kill to survive. You're just too fucking ignorant to understand that.
Dude, you have a farm. You're literally the definition of invading wild spaces. You chose to clear wild spaces and live there, and introduce people to the habitats that you're the angry if other people want to walk in.
In kinda stunned at the hypocrisy. If you don't want people to intrude on the animals space, move. You're not special.
With the first part, you almost seem close to getting it.
I agree that it's stupid to kill predators in their habitat because you're supposed to feel safe in the woods. You're the one who keeps thinking that anyone is advocating for a safety bubble.
Humans are not typically prey animals for any predator. One attack a year is not a pattern of strong predation.
Avoiding contact is obviously the priority, but if an animal goes out of it's way to try to kill a person it's just irresponsible to say we should let it try again.