Children are magnets for cougars.
—Rick James, author and field archaeologist
As opportunists, cougars are always on the lookout for an easy meal. Most of the time they don’t see people as prey, but certain situations change that dynamic. Anything that is small, makes high-pitched sounds or moves quickly or erratically will attract their attention. That’s why children and domestic dogs are of special concern when in cougar habitat. Their size and movements resemble the cat’s natural prey, thus making them more vulnerable. A child, alone or in a group of children, is fourteen times more at risk of being attacked than an adult and there are many accounts of cougars killing dogs. But there are ways to mitigate the risk.
In October 1941, twenty-three-year-old Ruth Dickson was folding laundry in the bedroom while her four-month-old daughter napped in her buggy on the veranda. The family had moved into a duplex in the Sayward Valley on northern Vancouver Island fifteen months before. “My mind was on an unopened parcel of books from the library outreach program,” Dickson wrote in her memoir, Pebbles in the Stream.
“Then I glanced out the window to see the buggy moving slightly. June was awake and talking to herself. ‘Darn it! No time for books,’ I was thinking, when another movement caught my attention. This one was across the garden beyond the picket fence. As I watched, a cougar arched in a leap over the gate. It was a young male, curious about the small cooing and chirping sounds he could hear near the house. He came slowly up the walk, head raised, intent on the sounds. With his front feet on the top step he paused, watching the slightly moving buggy.
“The long barreled .22 was handy and the loaded clip was right on the dresser. I was at the door in seconds. There was no time to think. At the shock of a burning sting in the skin at the top of his shoulders, the cougar somersaulted backwards. With two immense springs, he vaulted the gate and was gone in the woods across the road. I dropped the gun to the floor immediately after firing it through the screen door. I had my baby in my arms and was back in the house when our neighbour, Big Tim, thundered through the connecting door.”
The cougar was drawn to the sounds the baby was making and perhaps the movement of the buggy. Dickson averted disaster by keeping a close eye on her daughter, being aware of what was going on and acting quickly at the first sign of danger.
Many parents have saved their children from harm by responding in the same way. Seven-year-old Kyle Musselman was only 45 metres (148 feet) from the elementary school in Gold River on northern Vancouver Island when a cougar attacked him on May 9, 1994. His friends threw rocks at the cat while his brother ran home for help. Musselman’s dad, John, leapt out of bed, pulled on shorts and raced down the street barefoot. When he saw the thirty-six-kilogram (eighty-pound) male cougar standing over his son’s bloody body, he bared his teeth, yelled and charged. The cat relinquished its prey. In August 1996, when a cougar pulled her youngest son off his horse near Princeton, BC, thirty-six-year-old Cindy Parolin didn’t hesitate. She dismounted and tackled the beast, yelling for her three children to get away. She saved her children but lost her own life doing so. While sledding at Danskin, BC, on December 31, 2009, seven-year-old David Metzler was attacked by a thirty-kilogram (sixty-six-pound) cougar. When his mother, who was tidying up the nearby church, heard the screams she rushed outside and hit the cougar with the only weapon she had—a cleaning cloth. One whack and the cat took off.
Children are magnets for cougars. It’s almost as if the cat sees them as a different species than adult humans. And in a way, they are. They’re smaller, tend to move quickly and erratically, and have higher-pitched voices. All that makes them appear like easy prey to take down. In the 2011 report “Factors Governing Risk of Cougar Attacks on Humans,” the authors determined that even if a child was with adults, their chance of being attacked was more than six times higher than that of adults in the group. And the odds of an encounter escalating into an attack increased if one or more children were present in a group of adults. Children are also more likely than adults to die from a cougar attack.
Cougar safety literature advises parents to keep their kids close. But how close is close enough? On April 15, 2006, Shir Feldman was heading back to the family vehicle after a hike on Flagstaff Mountain Trail near Boulder, Colorado. His parents and two brothers were with him. The group was about forty-six metres (fifty yards) from the parking lot when a female mountain lion pounced on Shir. The seven-year-old was holding his dad’s hand at the time. The family yelled and pelted the cat with sticks and rocks until it released the boy.
Six years later, in February 2012, the Hobbs family had just finished dinner at the restaurant adjacent to their accommodation at Chisos Mountain Lodge in Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas. They were on the paved walkway adjoining the two buildings, with dad Jason holding four-year-old Hagan’s hand and mom Kristi holding six-year-old Rivers’ hand, when a mountain lion ran in front of Kristi and grabbed Rivers. Kristi hung on as they were dragged off the walkway but when the cat gave a huge jerk she lost hold of her son.
It was the first day of the Hobbs’s vacation. They’d planned to camp but another family told them a mountain lion had stalked their young daughter on a nearby trail earlier in the day. The Hobbs decided to stay at the lodge and eat dinner out that night. And they kept their boys close. Now a mountain lion had Rivers. Jason jumped on the cat and began hitting it while Kristi pulled on its hind legs. Then Jason pulled out his 9-centimetre (3.5-inch) knife and stabbed the mountain lion in the chest. The cat ran into the woods; a day or so later a young mountain lion in poor condition was shot.
Afterwards Jason recalled how annoyed his wife had been with him for drawing the knife from its sheath and snapping the blade open over and over all day. But when the lion attacked his son, pulling out the knife and stabbing the cat felt like the natural thing to do. Rivers required stitches for the large slashes and puncture wounds to his face but survived his ordeal.
Another incident showing a cougar’s strong attraction to children took place in South Dakota in July 1973. Grandparents Pete and Hazel, mom Judy and two-year-old Jason were touring Bear Country, an enclosed animal park where wildlife roams free. According to newspaper accounts, Judy stopped the motorhome to photograph mountain lions dozing under a tree. But when Jason shouted, “I want to see!” a lion lifted its head to stare intently at the boy. The next thing Judy knew, the cat had its front paws on the door panel and was peering in her window. As she moved the vehicle forward, the lion jumped in, climbed over her—biting her hand as she tried to stop it—then attacked Jason. Pandemonium broke out. Everyone was yelling. The motorhome rolled into a fence and stopped. Pete tried to choke the cat but it bit him and went back to chewing Jason’s throat and skull. From the front seat Judy and Hazel yelled at Pete to get a knife. He grabbed one out of a drawer and handed it to Hazel, who stabbed the cougar until it died.
When in cougar habitat, young children should always be supervised by an adult or older teen while playing outdoors. A fenced yard or playground may cause a cougar to reconsider approaching, especially if the surrounding area is cleared of vegetation for a minimum of fifteen metres (fifty feet), making a stealthy approach difficult. Everyone should know how to respond if a cougar is seen or someone is attacked. This includes young children who, despite their disadvantage in size and strength, have successfully fended off the big cats on occasion. But they all needed help.
One day during the spring of 1886, the three Farnham boys, ages six to twelve, were walking home from school near Olympia, Washington, when a cougar grabbed the youngest boy and dragged him into the bushes. Walter, the oldest, went after them, beating the cougar with a bottle. When it broke he tried to poke the animal’s eyes out with a piece of the glass. The other brother ran for help and returned with two woodcutters bearing rifles. By the time they arrived, the lion had climbed a tree to escape Walter.
On June 15, 1963, Bobbie Moore was returning home from a day of fishing near Prince George, BC. The six-year-old was about a metre (three feet) behind his older brother and sister when a cougar jumped out of the bushes and buried its teeth in the back of his head. When Moore screamed his siblings started yelling at the cat. His brother hit it repeatedly with a shovel he found at the side of the trail while his sister slapped the cougar in the face with her stringer of fish. The children were able to repel the cat.
Some schools provide cougar awareness and defence sessions for their students but all children in cougar habitat need to be educated about the possibility of encountering the predator. The information should be presented in a matter-of-fact way, similar to teaching a child how to safely cross busy streets. The basics are: don’t run, stare the cougar in the eye, act aggressive, fight back and help each other. “There’s no need to make children fearful,” said Dave Eyer. “Just let them know what to do. Teach school children to alert the playground supervisor if they spot a cougar. And tell them what to do if one approaches.”
Playing in groups is best. Wearing a lanyard with a loud whistle on it when in or at the edge of wooded, brushy areas is a good idea, too, and a dog is often useful as an early warning system that a predator is nearby. Dogs frequently smell, hear or sense the presence of wild animals sooner than humans. A dog’s incredible sense of smell and a human’s eyesight can be a great combination when it comes to predator awareness. Adults and children should learn to read and pay attention to their dog’s body language and actions. If Fido is on high alert, chances are they should be too. Tell children what to do if a pet starts exhibiting unusual behaviour.
Unless they’re habituated, cougars probably perceive domestic dogs as some sort of wild canine. Out of all the canids, cougars have a particularly complex relationship with wolves. Cougars can and do kill individual wolves, in some cases frequently. But when a pack, with its coordinated chase and attack tactics, is involved, wolves definitely have the upper paw. Wolves kill kittens and adult cougars and it’s not unusual for a pack to roust a cougar off its kill. Even a lone barking coyote has been known to convince a cougar to abandon a prey carcass. If wolves are nearby, most cougars will leave the area or, at the very least, be extremely wary. They can easily escape their tormentors by climbing a tree. But wolves have been known to wait a cougar out until it gets too cold or weak to defend itself.
In March 2013, Lori Iverson, the outdoor recreation planner for the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming, watched as two mountain lion cubs sought refuge on a buck and rail fence for over an hour while a small pack of coyotes harassed them. The cubs, estimated to be five- to six-months old, eventually escaped. Photo by Lori Iverson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Many cougars won’t turn and fight one or more barking dogs unless cornered or defending cubs. Most of the time when it comes to canines, a cougar’s instinct is flight not fight. The problem is, due to their small lung capacity, cougars can’t run far. So they climb trees. For most cats, unless the hounds stick around too long or a hunter with a rifle is following behind, a tree proves a safe haven.
But cougar hounds can be fanatically fervent about their vocation. While hunting cougars in Colorado during the early part of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt’s letters to his children often mentioned “dogs that climbed trees.” There was Turk, a bloodhound who once followed a cougar almost nine metres (thirty feet) up a pinyon tree. And Tony, a young half-breed bulldog who pursued nearly every cat that went up a tree and regularly tumbled to the ground from six metres (twenty feet) or more. Apparently the branches and snow broke the dogs’ falls, as they were always eager to chase another cat up a tree.
Just because a cougar trees doesn’t mean it will stay there. After a short rest, some will jump down and run again. Winston Vickers, associate veterinarian at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, recalled one such incident when tracking mountain lions in San Diego County, California, around 2005. “We were just about to dart a lion with a tranquilizer when it jumped out of the tree and landed in the middle of the dog pack,” he said. “In one smooth motion it leapt out of the tree, picked up a dog by the head and bounded off with it. Of course, all the hounds chased it. One caught up to the lion and grabbed it by the tail. That was enough to make it drop the dog, which survived but wasn’t keen on chasing lions for a while.”
Wildlife experts are often asked whether a dog is a deterrent or attractant to cougars. The answer depends on the cougar, the dog and the situation. Some cougars are frightened of dogs. But a young, inexperienced cougar or a starving, sick one may be desperate enough to attempt an attack. A mature, healthy cougar might not be able to resist the temptation of what looks like an easy meal. And for a cougar with a history of stalking and killing household pets, a dog is definitely an attractant.
“A large dog can look formidable to a cougar,” said Dave Eyer. “But if the dog acts cowardly, tries to run, whines or hides behind their owner, those signals tell the cougar the dog is not a threat. If the dog stands squarely facing the cougar, barks and pulls at the leash trying to get at it, that tells the cougar, ‘Don’t tangle with this person and dog!’”
Eyer added, “If the dog chases the cougar and trees it, that’s good. The person and dog have an opportunity to get away and it may teach the cat not to mess with people and dogs. If the cougar doesn’t run, the dog may be seriously injured or killed. That keeps the person safe but is difficult to witness. In that case, a person has to make a judgement call as to whether they can safely intervene or not. That’s a good time to have a can of bear spray on your belt.”
Four year old Rudy climbs every tree he can after cougars. His owner, Doug McMann of Skinner Creek Hunts, said he tries to discourage his dogs from going up trees but the desire to catch a cat often overwhelms them. Rudy was about three metres (ten feet) off the ground in this photo; some of McMann’s dogs have managed to climb as high as seven metres (twenty-five feet). Photo by Steve Austin
The reality is most people don’t expect to meet a cougar let alone deal with an aggressive one. In the late 1990s, Summer McGee and her partner hiked to Ripple Rock, a scenic lookout on eastern Vancouver Island. “When we got to the bluff we let Amber off leash and ate lunch,” said McGee. “She stayed right by us until we started to leave then ran off the side of the rock.”
That was unusual behaviour for the cocker spaniel. “I saw something brown and thought it was another dog,” explained McGee. “Then Amber whimpered and I realized it was a cougar ten feet away, lying down with its paws over our dog. I didn’t know what to do. The week before a woman [Cindy Parolin] had been killed defending her child from a cougar.”
McGee and her partner decided not to take the cougar on. “The most awful thing was listening to our dog scream as we walked away. It was extremely difficult and painful,” she said. Two men also hiking the trail tried to rescue the dog but later caught up with the women and said there was no way the cat would relinquish its prey.
As difficult as it was, McGee made the right decision. People have been killed attempting to rescue their pets from predators. “Human life must come first,” said Eyer. “People need to be prepared to defend their dog but only to the degree that it is safe for them. They should stand back, use bear spray, throw rocks, scream and jab it with a stick from a distance, but never attempt to put themselves between the dog and cougar.”
Even well-trained dogs should be leashed in high-risk areas. “Pets are an attractant to large carnivores,” explained wildlife biologist Danielle Thompson. “If a dog is off leash that puts it in a whole different risk category. Despite that, a lot of people feel it’s a personal affront to their freedom if you ask them to leash their dog. But a domestic dog is not an equal adversary to a wild animal that relies on hunting and killing to survive. You have a chance of protecting your dog when it’s on leash. But if it’s running free it is more likely to be singled out by a predator as a potential source of food.”
“It’s difficult to leash your dog on a big beach,” she acknowledged. “But even though you don’t see them, predators can be nearby. Recently some interns were out in the field and saw an adult bear on Long Beach. One girl was from Germany. Seeing a bear was a big deal for her so they watched it. The next thing they knew a wolf ran out and chased the bear off. Everyone was shocked because the wolf had been close to them all along but no one had noticed it.”
For Dave Weighell, having his dogs on leash probably saved their lives. The thirty-seven-year-old was taking Sequoia, a border collie–husky cross, and Chinook, a large collie–Staffordshire terrier cross, on their regular late-night walk on March 2, 2012. Around midnight he was about 50 metres (164 feet) from his Canmore, Alberta condo. Suddenly a full-grown cougar grabbed the twenty-kilogram (forty-five-pound) Sequoia, the smaller dog, by the face and tried to pull the dog to the ground. Both dogs were on leash so everything was happening right in front of Weighell. He yelled and kicked the cat until it took off. Sequoia had a puncture wound but survived.
But not all dogs are as lucky. In March 2013, a dachshund was being walked by its owner in a gated community in Colorado when a cougar suddenly appeared, jerked the leash out of the man’s hand and killed the dog. “In our area we’ve had cougars attack dogs at homes and dogs attack cougars at homes,” said Dave Eyer, who lives in the BC Interior. “At one neighbour’s, tracks clearly showed a cougar had walked around the barn, ignoring the calf and cow, gone around the chickens and hid under the house waiting for the dogs to be let out in the morning.”
People with livestock and pets that don’t sleep in the house need to ensure their animals have a safe enclosure at night. Cougars can leap great distances so secure barns and covered runs with strong wire tops are recommended. Walter Boyce, wildlife veterinarian and professor at UC Davis, considers mountain lions similar to human teenagers in some ways. “They’re generally well behaved but they are also very good at finding ways to get into trouble,” he said. “And there are plenty of ways for lions living near people to get into trouble. Given too much opportunity, lions eat domestic animals at some point—it just happens.
“If people let their livestock or pets run loose at night in lion habitat, that’s an incredible temptation over time,” Boyce added. “And once a lion kills livestock it is often destroyed. People need to recognize that their personal choices affect their domestic animals and the wild animals that live in the area.”
But despite the risks, a well-trained, obedient dog can be a valuable asset when it comes to personal defence. “The dog must stay within fiftee metres of the owner to act as the human’s keen ears and nose,” Dave Eyer wrote in his Bear & Cougar Encounters Course Handbook. “The dog must heel on command and come when called—even if it prefers to face off with a predator. It must not attack unless ordered to do so. Though training is important, be aware that some dogs have it and some don’t. A dog that has a strong bond with its owner will be willing to protect and fight for them if need be.”
And that’s what saved Austin Forman from injury and perhaps death. As the eleven-year-old pushed the wheelbarrow back and forth between the woodshed and his house he wondered why Angel was sticking so close. The eighteen-month-old golden retriever usually ran around in the snow sniffing and playing. It was January 3, 2010, and, at 5:30 p.m., already dark. Forman was a metre (a few feet) away from the woodshed when he saw another dog. But as it moved into the glow of the yard light he realized it was a cougar. In mid-leap.
Before Forman could react Angel jumped between him and the cat. The boy ran into the house where everyone could hear Angel making horrible noises. Forman’s mom, Sherri, called 911. Luckily Boston Bar, BC, is a small community and the RCMP office was only a block away. Constable Chad Gravelle raced to the Forman house where he learned Austin was okay but the cougar had dragged Angel under the deck steps.
With his flashlight Gravelle saw the dog and cougar tangled together in the small space. He shot at the cougar’s rear end hoping to sever its spine. When that didn’t work he shifted his position. Now only two metres (six feet) away, he glimpsed part of the cougar’s head behind Angel’s. He pulled the trigger. The cougar died with its jaws clamped around Angel’s muzzle, trying to suffocate her. When Forman’s cousin retrieved the dog from under the steps, Angel was covered in blood and motionless. Then she inhaled deeply, struggled to her feet and ran over to sniff Forman. Although badly chewed up around the head, Angel made a full recovery. Without her presence, Forman surely would have been mauled, or worse. And without the quick response of Constable Gravelle, Angel would have died.
While conducting research for “Factors Governing Risk of Cougar Attacks on Humans,” the authors discovered that time of day and location played a strong role in whether a dog was an attractant or a deterrent to a cougar. Walking with a dog on a trail or road during daylight decreased the odds of a person experiencing a close encounter. However, a dog outside a residence or camp at night placed a person at increased risk, as darkness created an opportunity for a cougar to sneak up near a house or campsite, and owners were sometimes injured while attempting to rescue their pet.
Just because a person is out with their dog during the day doesn’t mean they should forget about scanning their surroundings and paying attention to what’s going on. Suzanne Olszowiec was walking her three cattle-herding dogs along the Puntledge River pipeline trail on central Vancouver Island one afternoon in October 2011. When two women and their labs approached, she called her dogs. As they ran up and were being leashed, Olszowiec heard a low growling sound. A cougar, about the size of a big German shepherd, was in the bushes about two metres (seven feet) away. “I could see its lips moving,” she said. “The dogs were running around and vocalizing so it was watching them. But I got the feeling if the dogs hadn’t been there, it would have been watching the people.” None of the five dogs noticed the cougar.
From that point on, Olszowiec began carrying bear bangers and a half-kilogram (twenty-ounce) framing hammer or heavy flashlight with her when she walked the dogs. The following spring she saw what she suspects was the same cougar. Her dogs were about nine metres (thirty feet) in front of her when all of a sudden everything went quiet. “There wasn’t even any bird noise,” she said. “I glanced behind me and a cougar was on the road. It looked at me then went into a farmer’s field.
“Perhaps the wind was wrong because the dogs didn’t notice the cougar that time either,” she added. “The cougar looked a little older and bigger and a lot less afraid of people. I’d be happy to never see it again but that’s a part of life around here. And even though I’ve only seen this cougar twice, I’m sure he’s seen me a hundred and two times.”
When it comes to dogs and cougars and who chases who, it may be a matter of which animal sees the other first. If a cougar is stalking a dog or a person—some cougars go for the dog, others attack people and show no interest whatsoever in the dog, whether it’s a corgi or a St. Bernard—it may not run away when noticed. On the other hand, if a cougar is surprised by a barking, charging dog, its first instinct might be to get the heck out of there. A medium- to large-size dog is generally more of a deterrent than a small one and two dogs are better than one.
“I don’t know why some lions run from dogs and others attack them,” admitted Winston Vickers. “I think it depends on the circumstances and the individual lion. Sometimes if they’re around rural areas with livestock lions can become used to dogs. But in some cases a little dog can put a cat up a tree all by itself.”
And that’s sort of what happened one night in May 2009, when Philomath, Oregon, resident Loren Wingert heard her small border terrier squealing in the yard. When she looked outside she saw a mountain lion pinning Rosie to the ground. Wingert ran to the phone to call for help, but it was already there. Her tiny chihuahua, Chiquita, barked its heart out until the lion dropped Rosie and left the yard.
Less than a month later, Analee Spray’s dogs couldn’t wait to get out of their Riverside County home in southern California. Spray, along with her three-year-old daughter, followed the barking trio to the garage. When she peeked inside, Spray saw a mountain lion. The toy chihuahuas, weighing just over a kilogram (three pounds) each, held the large cat at bay for forty-five minutes until a Fish and Wildlife official arrived.
When it comes to cougars, attitude is important. And in some cases, it can even make up for size and strength. Dogs can be a good early warning system, distract a nearby cougar and defend their owner if a cat attacks. And even young children can deter a cougar if they know what to do and have someone to help them.