On the night of August 23, 1990, an eighty-pound, two-year-old female mountain lion wandered into our backyard.
The story appears in a book on cougar-human interactions (David Baron, The Beast in the Garden [New York: Norton, 2004], 182-187) -- a book which also contains a picture of "our" lioness, lying drugged on the ground (167).
My strongest memory of that encounter doesn't appear in the book and deserves a report. The lioness was crouching on a low branch of a box elder, and a goodly number of police loitered on the street and in the yards and alleys waiting for the wildlife-control officer and his tranquillizing dart. Eventually the marksman arrived and shot the lioness. The animal leaped down from the tree. As soon as she hit the ground and started to run, we could hear the sound, resonating throughout the neighborhood, of car doors being slammed shut as the officers rushed into their vehicles -- to re-emerge only when the lioness collapsed.
Last week, there was another mountain lion in a near neighbor's backyard. It was daylight; the owner of the house had her video camera available and produced a very clear record of a magnificent animal -- much larger and more formidable that the one we had seen. Two nights ago, the neighbors held a meeting and the author of The Beast in the Garden, who lives in town, came to tell us about cougars in our county and what to do if we encounter them. The good news is that the odds of being attacked are small: only one local person (a high school student jogging alone near Idaho Springs) has been killed -- or taken, the word is -- during the last decade. The author's advice: bring a companion with you when you go walking in the mountains-- it's unlikely that a catamount will attack two people, and if he should attack, then there are two of you to fend him off. (He didn't repeat a familiar bit of local humor: "Always bring a friend with you when you walk in mountain-lion country. Remember, you don't have to outrun the lion; you just have to outrun your friend.") He also reminded the audience that it's wrong to run away (because you will look like prey) but that you should make yourself look big, make noise, throw rocks, etc. Do not, repeat do not, play dead -- or worse yet, get down on all fours and try to crawl away. But on the whole it's not the mountain lion you see who's the danger; it's the mountain lion whom you don't see, but sees you. The one you feel.
A jogger was in the mountains with his faithful pooch at his side. He came to the top of a rise and there, on the road, was a big panther. The jogger's dog immediately disappeared into the roadside vegetation. The man did everything right -- shouted, threw things, stared the lion down. Eventually, and slowly, the big beast moved away and the jogger continued on his run. When he came to the bottom of the hill, Faithful Companion, who had taken the long way around, reappeared and resumed running with his master.
Man's best friend, but within sensible limits.
Comments