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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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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.
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.
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.
Wolves almost never see adult humans as prey. Since 1761, only 77 non-fatal attacks and 40 fatal attacks from wolves. However, of those 40, only 9 occurred in the last 100 years and 2 of them were death from rabies. Many of the non-fatal attacks and a few of the fatal attacks were from captive wolves. Most of the attacks involved children and/or pets.
Wolves have been practically extinct in the US for many decades. That's a major reason why there are so few incidents. However, I agree that viewing adult humans as prey isn't "typical" wolf behavior.
Would a healthy wolf prefer to hunt a human over other prey? No. But we're talking about wild animals. If you encounter a wolf in the wild you don't know if it's hungry or sick, and the animal may absolutely treat you as prey.
40 since 1791
You're both wrong, none of them see humans as prey. JFC. None of them want anything to do with humans.
*Downvote all you want. This is fact. People need to be afraid so common parlance has bought into the completely wrong idea that these animals hunt humans. They do not.
This is not fact. This is blind conjecture from an anonymous unqualified user who takes time to respond to down-votes but is too lazy to actually raise a substantive source, or lacks one altogether. Opinion is not fact.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-beat/article/study-most-black-bears-attack-humans-may-see-them-prey/2011/05/11/
Beets, Bears, Battlestar galactica.
Not opinions just facts
I changed my mind. These are 100% fax.
That article said 1) they are out hunting. Not that they are hunting humans, but I'm pretty sure you read it as such. And 2) "testing you out as a possible prey item," said Dr. Herrero, a professor emeritus at the Univ". Testing mf testing. By bears in deep country that don't have much experience with humans. They do not default think that you are prey. I've had bears size me and you can just see their mind is 'what are you, hey you're not prey' before wandering off.
Anyway what I wanted to convey is that normal behavior (which is the vast vast majority of behavior) these animals do not see humans as prey. But yes in the very, very rare occasions they attack humans, a portion of that can be something went wrong in their brain or in the situation and they may have seen you as prey. This is extraordinarily rare, as you can see by the rareness of attacks to even begin with. But people want to read that as normal behavior is hunting humans as prey, which it's not. It's the edge case. There's a huge difference which I hope you now see.
As someone who actually lives amongst them all, they mostly aren't all that much of a threat to your safety. But yes, they will eat you if hungry enough. Which they can be when it gets cold and the snow is deep, and you can be sure your ass will eat just as good as a deer. And you might be easier to catch to boot since good cardio training only goes so far.
If they are sick, malnourished, or injured and can't feed their normal way, they may turn to optimistic opportunities (which is still different than hunting and seeing humans as prey). Not if they are hungry or the snow is deep JFC.
Isn't that just another way to say "hungry"? And are they not more likely to be "sick, malnourished, and injured" when it's winter time? JFC
Nor did I claim they were all that much of a danger under normal circumstances. But, they are wild animals and therefore unpredictable in their actions. While I do not fear their presence, I do understand things can go sideways very, very quickly despite everyone's best intentions otherwise. And it pays me to be aware of my surroundings even in my yard when grilling a hamburger or out in the forest foraging for mushrooms and berries as the seasons dictate.
All animals are hungry. Only a very, very few are sick, malnourished or injured - which are the ones that turn to opportunistic opportunities and attacks. Not the same at all.
All it takes is one.
How about polar bears?
Now Polar bears think everything that moves is food. But you're not going to run into one of those on your weekend stroll.
You don't know where I stroll.
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.
They don't have to consider humans food for the chase reflex to kick in. All predators in general but canines in particular have a set of reflexes that make it very dangerous to turn your back and flee.
It's why you don't have to teach puppies to chase a thrown stuffed toy, even if it's entirely novel to them.
A bear might just be trying to scare you off, but it'll chase you down solely because you ran.
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.
With bears the big thing is prevention. Make sure to keep your presence known as not to scare a bear by having little bells on your backpack.
Also knowing what bears are in the area will help. Brown bears are much less likely to attack a human, whereas Grizzlies will have no hesitation. To tell which ones are in the area, look for bear scat. If you come across Brown bear scat, you will notice it has nuts and berry seeds in it. If it's grizzly bear scat, you will see it filled with little bells.
Black bears are less likely to attack humans (some are brown colored though). Brown bears are grizzlies.
Very good points! Preventing these encounters is the best thing you can do. Number one thing with bears is don't have any food on you.
My dad was solo backpacking in the California back country and thought he had stashed all his food in a sack hung from a tree, but forgot about a granola bar in his pocket. He had a dream a bear was licking his face and when he woke up, a black bear was licking his face. He felt around his pockets, found the granola bar and threw it, and the bear went after it and then left him alone.
I have no doubt he wouldn't have survived if it had been a hungry Grizzly.
makes sense given black bears are known scavengers.
Wait a minute.
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?
A gun. And plenty of ammo.
I'm sorry, this is just fearmongering based on a rare event-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_cougar_attacks_in_North_America
Bears, wolves and cougars are, generally, not dangerous to humans.
Even the article linked to calls it rare.
If anything this proves his point even more.
27 fatalities out of 126 attacks is an insane death rate. I guarantee you it's much lower for bears, and maybe wolves too.
This would be because, like the posted stated, bears don't have the intention to kill you they just want you to leave. If they attack it's less likely you will die from it.
Cougars attack with the intent to kill you though, hence the higher death rates.
Yes it's rare, but the poster never said it was common.
What that kill rate indicates is that cougars don't attack unless they're pretty damn sure they can not only win, but not be very injured in the process. Because injury = starvation for them. The only other case they'd attack humans is they're really desperate, perhaps a female protecting her cubs, or all prey has been killed by fire, that kind of situation.
If a fully grown cougar gets the jump on you and you're alone, you will likely lose. But if you are paying attention, see them and let them know they've lost the element of surprise, and make it clear you're going to leave if they let you but fight if they attack, they probably won't.
Of course if you're hiking with your children or pets you should choose areas without known cougars, and keep them leashed close to you. Note: if you're snack-size, you should bring bear spray, or your neighbors' obnoxious kid who runs slower than you.
This was part of their point:
So you're saying that people have only seen a cougar behind them staring at them 126 times in the last 100 years?
As for what you're saying:
Please support that with evidence. Because if the kill rate is far less than 25%, which it is, they must be terrible at being hunters.
25% is a very high kill rate for natural predators.
https://www.explorationjunkie.com/lion-hunting-success-rate/
And that 15-25% rate is against their natural prey. 25% against a prey that is equal in size and not their natural prey is pretty darn good.
As for the first part of your post, you're right. Just because you see a cougar behind you doesn't mean it considers you food. I've always heard that the only time you EVER see a cougar is when it does NOT see you as food. If it doesn't want to be seen then it won't be seen. If you see it then it already considers you either non-food or a non-threat.
These animals aren't dangerous until they are. In the wild, you don't know if you're encountering an injured or desperate animal. My main issue with OPs comment is the terrible advice on what to do when encounting one of these predators.
Also, how was the mountain lion population in the US doing until recently? Extermination of wild populations is a major reason why incidents in the past are so rare.
Not sure what you're talking about; it looked more factmongering to me.
This cannot be a fact:
If this is a fact:
You win time, friend. But I will return!
Although...nah. You win. Until next time!
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.
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.
I dunno. Looks more like a mountain lion. Or a puma.
I can't rule out a panther or a catamount, though.
What in Sam Hell is a puma?
A chupa-thingy.
At night? Had to be a skin walker.
Got it. I will turn my back and run away from any threatening bears I encounter. Should I also make any high pitched squealing sounds? Perhaps I should climb a tree?
JFC no Cougars don't consider humans to be food. Attacks are very, very rare and almost always from sick or malnourished Cougars who can't catch prey and are trying to eat anything.
Don't know why you're being downvoted. Very rare for cougars to attack humans - around 20 attacks in the last century. As ambush hunters they prefer prey that they can easily take down, and generally will run away if faced with much resistance. Children or small dogs may be at more risk.
People have bought into this idea that cougars, bears, etc hunt humans.