Man Kills Mountain Lion, Apparently With Bare Hands

It's not impossible -- C. Dale Petersen once killed a grizzly bear with his bare hands and teeth (by using his teeth to close off a blood vessel to the brain, rather than by tearing out the thick, tough throat).

This lion was young, too, and not full grown.
The runner, whose name has not been released, fought off the cougar-- killing it in the process-- and hiked out of the area and drove himself to a hospital. The Denver Post reported that the runner suffered serious injuries that included facial bite wounds and lacerations to his body. He is expected to recover.

Wildlife officers searching the trail found the juvenile mountain lion's body near several of the runner's possessions. They estimated that the animal weighed about 80 pounds.
Still, an impressive feat! Colorado's government has confirmed that he did not use a weapon, but suffocated the animal while it was trying to kill him.

5 comments:

Ymarsakar said...

Only impossible because humans have lost most of their training methods.

Of course, I prefer to carry blades longer than the longest animal talon, claw, and fang. That's the smarter way to play Mortal Avatar Earth mmo rpg.

ColoComment said...

Back in the early aughts, David Baron wrote a book about the narrowing urban-wildlife interface, and the dangers to both human and animal life that it brings.
"The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature"
https://www.amazon.com/Beast-Garden-Modern-Parable-Nature/dp/0393058077/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

He opens with a tale from 1991 about a runner killed by a mt. lion while running a trail along Clear Creek, near Idaho Springs, Colorado, and expands from there to other examples.

I wonder if the runner of your post was aware of the Scott Lancaster story....

raven said...

Wonder how he did it? Neck lock from behind to cut off blood flow? Choking from the front using hands seems like a good way to get disemboweled ,when dealing with a cat. Kitty's love to rip with the back claws...

Grim said...

That’s my guess, but it was 80 pounds. Potentially he could have twisted its rear legs away and pinned them with his greater weight.

I hope he tells the story.

raven said...

A guy here in Washington State got in an argument with a Mt. Lion when he got off his bicycle to tie a shoelace of something- it jumped him, and he wrestled it, pinning it's front legs with his forearms and likewise the backlegs with his legs. He made the comment he was used to wrestling with his large dog, a Rottweiler or some similar breed. The cat ran off, he ran the other way to his pickup, grabbed a baseball bat and went back for his bike!