There’s a phrase that many people use when describing mountain lions: “You may not see them, but they see you.” This statement refers to how stealthily these large cats move in the wild. Cougars are highly evasive. Even if you’ve never seen one on a trail, if you spend enough time in mountain lion country, chances are you’ve crossed paths with one without ever knowing it. A new video supports this idea, as a trail camera captures a mountain lion stalking a person.
Videos by Outdoors
Check it out:
In the video, you see a person walking down a path. The timestamp reads 7:19 p.m. Three minutes later, at 7:22, a mountain lion enters the frame and pauses on the very same path the person had just walked down.
The video comes from Scott Haugen. He’s a hunter and outdoor enthusiast known for his popular videos and articles about the outdoors.
“When you have a feeling you’re being followed, and you’re right,” writes Haugen in the caption of his recent post featuring the mountain lion.
It appears Haugen never saw the cougar that night. When he reviewed the footage later, he spotted the large predator.
Most situations involving mountain lions end like this. The curious cats may follow someone, but overall, mountain lion attacks are fairly rare.
There have been about 29 (not all confirmed) fatal mountain lion attacks in North America since 1868, according to the Mountain Lion Foundation. On their website, they note: “Mountain lion attacks are incredibly rare, but there is no such thing as ‘risk free.’”
There aren’t many recommendations for hikers in mountain lion country to completely avoid encounters, but the Foundation offers some advice. They say, “Because mountain lions are ambush predators, most likely any time you see one, it isn’t hunting you. It may simply be curious or preparing to defend offspring or a cached food source. Either way, your next steps should show that you are too dangerous to fight and not a threat to it or its young.”
