Mountain Lion Attack

[zulu]

It is in my back yard. No really. I back up to Whiting (one of the reasons I bought the house) I could throw a stone to the area where it all occured. If you want a update let me know and I will post it but the quick version is:
a male MTBer breaks a chain is fixing it on the trail when attacked and killed by a 2 yr old male mountain lion weighing 110 lbs. 6 hrs or so later around 4:15pm two female MTBers on the trail find a unmaned bike, looking for the rider to see if help is needed one of the females are attacked the other female grabs her leggs and both are dragged 100yrds thru brush when a group of guys ridding come on the attack, throw rocks and call for help. One of the gals is airlifted to the hospital. during the rescue of the girls they find the previous males body mauled and part burried. One mountain lion (a 2yr old male)is shot by local sherifs around 9:00pm a second ( a female 1 1/2 yr old) is hit by a car around 10:30pm. Both animals are being looked into for being the one that attacked the riders.
As of 8:00am today (Jan 12th) the park is still closed.

[Thunderchild]

I have been warry of cougars for several years.    I take an accessible medium hunting knife and dog mace(shoots in a long line to about 10 feet vs. a short range cloud), and my dog when riding solo.  Some sort of loud noise maker might be very useful?  If I ever have an incidence, I hope to go down with a fight.  Even a gun won't save you if you are attacked from behind while fixing your flat tire.  As for cougars, there are many in the areas I ride weekly along the wasatch front in Utah.  I  see lots of tracks (in the winter snow mainly), scat and some cougar kill.  Even came across a deer that had been dead less then 24 hours on a fun trail very close to the small city of Alpine, Utah.  I found another one in a very remote area with nothing but thick brown Gamble oak around me and my dog.  We exited that area in high gear.  I wrote an article for my old MTB club in Oregon about cougars, Felis concolor.  There is some good information from the Oregon Division of Fish and Wildlife on some of the main reasons they might attack.  As far as we know i guess.  If you are interested, go to the following link and find the May 1998 newsletter, Issue 15.  The article is titled, "Wildlife."  http://merrycranksters.org/

[Carbon_Angus]

this is very sad ...

he was alone and unaware of the danger forthcoming.

'cats are primal stalkers, even if he looked around he wouldn't have seen anything

sad