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.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It’s always wolves and bears in movies, but if either attack a human it’s because the human ignored warnings and the bear or wolves couldn’t retreat anymore…

    Big cats tho?

    It’s very easy for them to consider humans food.

    A Cougar can stalk a human for miles before striking, and you’ll never know it’s there.

    If you turn around and see a cougar staring at you, you’re already considered food and running doesn’t help. You need to act like a bear, make a shit ton of noise and pretend you’re not currently shitting your pants. And you’ll likely scare it off. Act like prey and run tho, and it’s going to act like a predator.

    Run from a bear and wolves, and they got exactly what they wanted and won’t chase.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      As unlikely as it is to ever come up, you shouldn’t run from wolves or bears either. They both have a strong prey drive and might chase to kill even if that wasn’t their objective in the confrontation.

      • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Bears (brown, not so much black) and wolves don’t see people as prey? Wrong. Humans just cross paths with them less frequently.

        Humans may not be the prey of choice for bears and wolves. But that’s the case for mountain lions too.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, don’t literally “run away”. But even if you did most wolves won’t follow. They’re not around humans enough to consider us food. And they’re not going to attack stuff their unsure of.

        Coywolves or a rare Wolfpack that lives close to humans might, but that’s really rare.

    • Aphelion@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Run from a bear and wolves, and they got exactly what they wanted and won’t chase.

      That is the worst advice I’ve ever seen: a black bear can run 30mph/48kmh and will run you down if you run. Wolfs have a strong predation drive and will also run you down but in a pack. Both of these animals look for weakened prey and weakened prey always run.

      • MrBusiness@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        What would be handy to have for defense? Something like bear mace, boar spear, or air horn? Would one of those stranger danger backpack alarms scare em off?

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      I was stalked by a cougar once while walking my dog. It was evening and we were on our regular walking trail with a headlamp and flashlight.

      Then I see a pair of eyes reflecting back at me about 20m into the trees, just staring straight at us.

      My dog is clueless because he’s just sniffing at bushes to pee on.

      Immediately I start walking backwards, never taking the flashlight off the eyes, and they start following us all the way back to our property completely silent until they eventually disappear once we get to the lit up pathway. Luckily we were only about 400m into our walk.

      snapped a photo with flash to try and see if I could make out if it were a deer or not, but deer don’t try and follow you lol

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Looks more like two bobcats than 1 cougar.

        The one with eyes has huge ears, and I think the other ones eyes are just blocked. But it looks like ears and the flank of a bobcat. Just a little in front of the obvious one behind that stump.

        They wouldn’t be following for you if they were bobcats tho, maybe if your dog is under 25lbs. Or maybe it’s a breeding pair and they want to know why a human and dog are walking around their den at night

        I dunno, maybe that is a cougar tho. Where I grew up authorities spent decades saying we just had bobcats and no cougars. It wasn’t till someone shot one that was prowling around a barn till they admitted we had a cougar population and they didn’t seem afraid of humans.

        They havent gotten anyone yet.