"Hunters do things that hikers and other outdoor users don't do that makes them more likely to be attacked or at least have close encounters. Hunters use camouflage clothing, animal scents, animal calls (sometimes distress calls) and they often sit still or move very quietly and are out very early and very late in the day." - Wildlife Biologist, William Castillo, Oregon DFW

This page in an expansion of Thomas Jay Chester's Research on primarily California cougar attacks

1983    (1 Non-injury Report)

Date not given. Nanse Browne was stalked by a mountain lion while out for a run. She wasn't hurt, and now she's doing the stalking. Browne has become one of the leaders of an unlikely new force in California politics: people who've had run-ins with big cats.  Source:  (Outside Magazine; Wildlife: I Am Cat Bait--Hear Me Roar; Laura Hilgers; 10/95)

1988    (1 Non-injury Report)

25 June. Two lions chased a German couple with a small son in the Green Valley Campground area of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in California. They reported one large lion with a smaller one. The Game Warden found both together, and neither moved when he approached. He shot the bigger one -- an 80-pound male -- first, and the smaller one didn't move. He then shot that one, a 63-pound male.  Source;  (San Diego Union-Tribune; 02/11/96, C-14)

1990    (2 Non-injury Reports)

27 July. A Montana state game warden was investigating a report of a mountain lion near Kalispell and as he was walking through the bush, he turned to see a large cougar stalking him.  The warden fired two shots from his service revolver, but the lion didn't stop, so he used his shotgun to drop it right at his feet.  Source:  (Gary Gerhardt; Rocky Mountain News; 09/23/90)

27 July. A family living on Magnolia Road west of Boulder, Colorado, repeatedly tried to scare off a young male lion on their property. In the evening, while the husband was escorting his 4-year-old son to an outdoor bathroom, the lion confronted them, intensely watching the child. The father shot the animal.  Source:  (Gary Gerhardt; Rocky Mountain News; 09/23/90)

1991    (1 Report of a death very probably due to lion attack)

10 March. 3-year-old Travis Zweig of La Quinta, California, was feared killed by a mountain lion after he wandered away from his father who was chopping wood at a remote cabin near Pinon Pines, California.  Searchers, combing rugged terrain for the boy, found evidence suggesting a mountain lion dragged him off, authorities say. Shoe prints thought to be the toddler's were found a half-mile from where Travis disappeared.  Sheriff's Sargent Craig Kilday said the prints stopped at a rocky overhang where mountain lion prints were found.  Where the shoe prints stopped, there was a slide area and what they believed to be drag marks.  This would be the first fatality from a mountain lion attack in California since a boy was killed in 1890, according to the Orange County Cooperative Mountain Lion Study, and only a dozen such fatal attacks had taken place at the time of Travis's disappearance in all of North America since 1890.  Source:  (Associated Press; Rocky Mountain News; 03/14/91)

1993    (1 Non-injury Report)

September. Park officials closed Cuyamaca Rancho State Park for two weeks in September after a cougar chased two horseback riders, behavior that was considered unacceptable. The cougar subsequently attacked a girl and her dog (report HERE).   Source:  (Mountain Lions and California State Parks; 01/19/94)

1994    (2 Non-injury Reports, 1 Hunter Report)

January. Three bicyclists were menaced by a mountain lion at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. The lion was killed on a ranch north of Descanso 11 days later. It was a young 65-pound male.  Source:  (San Diego Union-Tribune; 12/11/94, A-1)

9 May. A couple visiting from Yuma, Arizona, with a 3-year-old boy saw a lion approaching at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in California. State park officials said the lion rushed within five feet of the youngster on the Azalea Glen Trail at the Paso Picacho campground. The lion bared its teeth and crouched to spring, but the boy's father said he drove the animal away by waving a stick and shouting. Patrol Lt. Bob Turner, of Pine Valley, went to the area the next day. "The lion was lying right where the park people said they saw it," Turner said. "We walked up to it with five adults and two dogs, and it made no attempt to move. That lion had no fear of people whatsoever." He fired one shot and killed the animal from about 20 yards away. He found the 83-pound male had been feeding on a fresh deer kill nearby.  Source:  (Ed Zieralski, San Diego Union-Tribune; 05/10/94, A-1)

October. Near dawn, Dan Parrish was out deer hunting with his father when he was confronted by a cougar in Oregon west of Detroit Lake about 45 miles east of Salem, Oregon. Walking down a logging road, he stopped on a knoll which allowed him to see left, forward, and right into a clear cut. He waited there until he heard some cracking and popping behind him, and he hoped a buck was approaching. Instead, to his horror, a cougar head appeared just 20 feet from him. He thought he should shoot, but found this female so beautiful, that he hesitated. Then he heard more cracking and popping sounds from the woods behind his adversary. A young male walked up to her side. Parrish knew his .264 Winchester Mag with bolt action would not easily get off two shots in the time 2 cats could make the 20 foot distance between them, so he fired a warning shot into the air. To his dismay, neither cat moved, so he picked up a rock and threw it at them. Luckily, the male took off into the woods.

Dan continued tossing rocks at the lion, but he was so nervous he couldn't hit her. He took a photo as proof he had seen the lion he didn't want to shoot. He calmed himself down, and finally hit her with a rock. This angered the lion, and she lunged at him. On her second bound, Parrish was able to shoot her in the chest. When she lifted her head, he shot her again in the neck and then fled to get his father. The two returned to examine the cat and then reported this to the Detroit Ranger Station. Officer Allison later told him that he had killed a 2-1/2 year old female weighing 85 pounds. Parish estimates she was over 6 feet long from nose to tail. Her paws were as big as the palm of his hand, and "her teeth were plenty long and sharp".  Source:  (Usenet groups archives, collected by Norman Yarvin; posted by Dan Parrish, University of Portland, 02/02/95)

1995    (2 Non-injury Reports)

January. A mountain lion, estimated to weigh at least 100 pounds, charged 17-year-old Michelle Rossmiller, as she bent down to get books out of her car parked in the driveway of her house. Her mother Lisa Rossmiller said: She saw it coming at her, thought fast and closed the door before it reached her. It was running straight at her. It's not afraid of us at all. It just snarls and hisses at us. Then when it goes away, it doesn't run. It just saunters off as if to say, "OK, not this time." The family first saw this lion in about December, and the encounters with it escalated. It became increasingly aggressive toward Lisa Rosmiller's children at their 4.5 acre home near Julian on Volcan Mountain in San Diego County, California, about 10 miles north of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. Rossmiller finally called the state Department of Fish and Game when the lion charged her daughter.   Source:  (San Diego Union-Tribune; 01/28/95, B-3)

September. 48-year-old Moses Street was stalked and repeatedly attacked by a mountain lion from dusk until he was rescued by Rocky Mountain Park Rangers at about 2:00 a.m. He was jogging on a popular trail in Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park, Colorado, when, by chance or instinct, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a cougar directly behind him, on its hind legs, in the final stage of attack. Waving his arms and yelling, Street managed to get the cougar to back off. He fended off a second approach with a large tree branch. He climbed atop the ruins of an old cabin and warded the lion off a third time by again swinging the branch. Street then scurried up a tree and hunkered down for a frigid overnight, dressed only in a T-shirt and running shorts. In the dead of night, the mountain lion began climbing the tree.

"I could just hear him," Street said. "If you've ever heard a squirrel scramble up a tree, magnify that. He'd put a claw in and there would be a crunch."

Swinging blindly with his branch, Street hit the lion, and it retreated. When he failed to return from his jog, Street's girlfriend called the Park Rangers who finally found and rescued him. Source:  (The Washington Post; Tom Kenworthy; A Conflict Between Creatures 07/13/97; Page A01) (National Scenic Trails Internet Mailing Lists; 09/07/98) (Bike Colorado; Men's Journal; Anthony Brandt; 09/98)

1996    (1 Non-injury Report)

16 January. A woman on horseback at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in California reported an aggressive lion. She likely saved herself by baring her teeth, growling and staring the lion down as it approached her. Two Game Wardens and an Animal Damage Control specialist went to that spot the next day, and the lion charged them, getting to within 15 feet before the 62-pound male was shot twice. "What bothered me about this one is the veterinarian said it was a cub," Game Warden Turner said. "It was a 1 1/2 - to 2-year-old that probably was just booted out by its mother and was trying to make it on its own." Turner said he'd never had a lion charge like this one.  Source:  (San Diego Union-Tribune; 02/11/96; C-14)

1997    (2 Non-injury Reports, 1 Pet/Livestock Fatality Report)

04 September. Four mountain lions that killed a foal and injured another horse on a ranch near Julian, California, were shot by a federal government tracker-hunter with Animal Damage Control. He placed a radio transmitter on the carcass the next day and waited to see if the lion would return to the kill. After dark, coyotes began to howl nearby and he feared they would interrupt the lion's return. When outdoor lights were turned on, he was very surprised to find four lions around the dead foal. The lions shot were a 70-pound female, along with what likely were her offspring -- two males and a female -- all ranging from 55 to 70 pounds. The young lions were estimated to be 14 to 15 months old. The incident wasn't reported to the media because it was done on a private ranch and officials always fear public reaction.  Source:  (Ed Zieralski, San Diego Union-Tribune; 09/16/97)

20 October. A 20-year-old mountain bike rider was attacked by a cougar at Walker Ranch Open Space near Flagstaff Mountain, in the hills west of Boulder, Colorado. The lion lunged and "took a swipe" at him, then stopped and snarled with its ears laid back. The biker used his bike to protect him until the lion backed off. However, as the man continued slowly down the trail, the lion followed him for a short distance until finally leaving.  Source:  (Wildlife Report; from the Colorado Division of Wildlife; 10/22/97)

28 December. A female cougar charged a group of women and children at Caspers Regional Park in Orange County, California, less than two weeks after the county had lifted restrictions on minors visiting the park. The cougar was later killed. (Orange County Record; 09/29/98)

1998    (4 Non-injury Reports)

August. A woman encountered a cougar near Stonewall Peak in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, California. She used pepper spray on an aggressive cougar and finally repelled it from attacking her and a female friend after a 15-minute ordeal.  Source:  (Ed Zieralski, San Diego Union-Tribune; 10/10/98, B-1)

22 September. A Forest Service worker was shaken but unharmed by a cougar that followed and circled him in an area about 15 miles from where a cougar seriously injured 5-year-old Carmen Schrock the previous month. This incident in northern Pend Oreille County was the first time a cougar has so brazenly approached a forest worker, according to acting Sullivan Lake Ranger Amy Dillon.  Source:  (The Spokesman-Review, Article ID: 9809240007, 09/24/1998)

08 October. Early Thursday morning, a lion threatened Betty Wensloff of Banning, California, a member of the Yucaipa Valley Riding Club, as she went to check on her stock at the Los Vaqueros horse camp in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, California. A horse, whirling around in it's camp stall in reaction to a lion on some hay bales, alerted Wensloff who then saw it. She yelled at it and grabbed a rake to defend herself. The lion left when other members of the group came to her aid.

Lt. Game Warden Bob Turner of the California Department of Fish and Game arrived mid-afternoon. Early in the evening an 80-pound male cougar was found sitting near the campground and Turner shot it from 10 yards away after he and fellow game warden Sean Pirtle noticed that the animal had walked over their tracks. Pirtle said he was followed down the trail later by an 79-pound female cougar, which was within 10 feet of him when he shot her. The rangers ordered the campers to leave during their efforts, but they made a case to stay overnight by telling rangers they'd been drinking. They were told after the lions were killed that they could stay, though park areas had been closed to others while the lion hunt was in progress.  Source:  (Ed Zieralski, San Diego Union-Tribune; 10/10/98, B-1)

09 October. Lt. Game Warden Bob Turner of the state Department of Fish and Game returned to the Los Vaqueros horse camp in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park Friday afternoon and learned that a camper had kicked a lion out of the way earlier in the day for attempting to attack his pet dog. Turner hiked into the woods, spotted a 90-pound male sitting near the campground, and he shot it. Then suddenly the campers yelled that another one was running toward him. Turner said another 90-pound male stopped and glared at him, and he fired.

"I cannot believe this," Turner said. "I'm dumbfounded. People there were so glad I killed these lions so they could stay there, but believe me, this is not fun." Recently, more such encounters with multiple lions had been reported.  Source:  (Ed Zieralski; San Diego Union-Tribune; 10/10/98, B-1)

1999    (1 Pet Report, 1 Non-injury Report)

05 February. Gary Vinagre, who lives on Garnet Street in Ketchum, Idaho, reported to police that a mountain lion jumped over a fence, crossed his 20- to 25-yard-wide backyard and killed his dog, which was housed in a separated garage. After Vinagre put his dog's body in his vehicle, the lion then confronted him at his back door. Vinagre yelled and shot in the lion's direction to scare it away. The male lion was found dead in a neighbor's backyard the next day from a shotgun wound. It was estimated by Fish and Game officials to be a healthy (not rabid) four-year-old weighing 117 lbs. The next night, Vinagre said, new mountain lion tracks were left in his yard.

"We’ve lived in this house for 27 years and haven’t ever seen signs of substantial mountain lion activity like this before. You expect something like that in the mountains, on a trail, not in your backyard."

Source:  (Local dog and cougar dead after weekend incident; GREG STAHL; from News Express, Ketchum???; 02/10/99; 02/16/99)

October. A 54-year-old male runner was chased by a mountain lion in Bear Canyon in Boulder County, Colorado. He was not injured.  Source:  (Statistics on mountain lion attacks in Colorado)

2000    (2 Pet Reports, 1 Report not confirmed to be a cougar, 3 Hunter Reports, 1 Non-injury Report)

01 January. Two cougars were shot in Republic, Washington, after eating pet cats. They were believed to be 9-month-old litter mates who lived on the edge of Republic. A mother here was helping her 7-year-old daughter put on boots to go play in the snow on New Year's Day when her husband came downstairs and announced he had just shot a cougar in their yard - a day after another one was shot in the same area.

"I was just scared to death when he told me that," the mother said. "I was just getting ready to shove my little girl out the door."

Source:  (Spokane.net 08/25/99, Article 1 of 16, Article ID: 0001060021; 01/06/2000)

03 May. "A small cougar" swiped its claw across the lower leg of Ken Jones while he was feeding the neighbor's cats near Siletz, Oregon. The cat retreated after Ken hit it in the head with a shovel three to four times. Although this doesn't sound like a typical cougar attack, and may have been a bobcat, wildlife field officer Jeffrey A. Brent says despite a week long investigation of the area to verify cougar tracks and/or catch a cougar with dogs, they were unable to verify any tracks in the immediate vicinity of the alleged attack as those of a cougar. He concluded that there was not sufficient evidence based on field observations to substantiate that a mountain lion had attacked the man. Neither could it be determined that it was not a cougar.  Source: (Channel 6000 05/05/2000.) (e-mail from field supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program in Oregon, Jeffrey A. Brent 01/24/2000)

01 September. At about 8:30 p.m. Leonard Doty was out removing tall brush from his property with his dog, Prince, at his cabin near Sequim, Washington, when a cougar appeared and grabbed Prince on the run. He continued running with the small dog in his mouth, encountering Doty's wife and another small dog who gave chase. Trying to retreat from the charging dog, the lion again encountered Doty who was waving his machete, so he ran 40 feet up a tree with the dog where he killed Prince, apparently to keep him quiet. His wife brought Doty a gun which he fired at the lion. The wounded lion dropped the dog and leapt straight at Doty, first landing in power and phone lines and then landing about 18 inches from Doty. Doty fired at point blank range, but the lion still ran off. Finally, the Game Department arrived in the now darkness and helped track the lion which had died from his wounds about 150 feet away. Doty was not directly injured, but he suffered a heart attack during the encounter.  Source:  (Stacy Goodman; The Issaquah Press; 11/13/2000) (An e-mail from Leonard Doty)

Read Doty's word-for-word account HERE.
Warning:  If you are sensitive to graphic details, this one page story "takes you there" and then some.

10 September. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, Will High, reported to me that a hunter encountered a lion as he was sneaking along near Bunch Grass Ridge in the McKenzie River Area east of Eugene, Oregon. He stopped to watch some deer in the distance when he sensed or heard something behind him. When the mountain lion charged, he tripped as he turned, fell, and shot the cougar while on the ground. It was a male cat weighing about 115 pounds. Examination of the path of the hunter's bullet didn't completely match the hunter's description of the event, but it is thought it was as accurate as the shaken man could describe.  Source:  (E-mail from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, Will High 01/24/2001)

15 September. A 6-year-old boy, Manuel Hernandez of Malott, Washington, had a close call with a cougar in an apple orchard. He may owe his life his dog, Amigo, a medium sized border collie. Manuel had gotten off a school bus and was walking home when he noticed Amigo barking at the base of a tree in an orchard. The first-grader walked past the tree, coming within 18 feet of the cougar, before he noticed it and started running. Luckily, the orchard's owner, Stanley Stout, drove in and saw Manuel running. He shot and killed the young, female cougar (which was not in good condition), still treed by Amigo. Tim Ford, enforcement sergeant for the State Department of Fish and Wildlife in Okanogan, thought the cougar likely would have attacked the boy had the dog not been present.

Stout agreed, "That dog saved his life, I'm sure of it. This cat situation is getting to be real serious. I've lived here all my life and I've never seen them like this."  Source:  (Associated Press story via Washington State Bowhunters; 09/21/2000)

mid September. At about 8:20 a.m., while elk hunting in the muzzle loading season, Dave Enyeart was sitting watching a saddle in Colorado near Rosemont Reservoir between Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek when a yearling deer came running up towards him. It stopped about 10 feet from Enyeart, looking back down the draw. He was hoping some elk had chased it up. Then the deer ran off, and he spotted the mountain lion coming towards him, looking for the deer. At first he thought it was great that he finally got to see a mountain lion. In a few moments he decided it was time to let the cat know he was there. He had always been told to look big and make noise, so he yelled out, "GET OUT OF HERE!" Showing no fear, all the lion did was look him the eye. Next Enyeart tried standing up, making himself look big and yelling more. Instead of retreating, now the lion came over a log and started for him. By this time Enyeart felt he had better shoot. He hit the female lion with one shot and called the Colorado Division of Wildlife to make a report.

Enyeart believes the mountain lion was mounted for educational use. It was approximately 2 years old and weighed a healthy 135 pounds. He was sad to have to shoot a lion, as he believes it is their world, but he had no choice. He was shocked by his experience. Now he goes into cougar land with new fear, believing he is the hunted, watching his back, and keeping his children with him at all times.   Source:  (E-mail from Dave Enyeart 03/21/2001)

08 November. A similar incident to the September 10 one above occurred near Mehama, Oregon, east of Salem when a hunter rounded a bush and surprised a mountain lion coming the other direction around the bush. At first the startled lion jumped away but then stopped and looked back. The hunter felt menaced and shot the lion, but it is less clear that this lion behaved aggressively.  Source: (Interview with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, Will High 01/19/2001)

2001    (4 Non-injury Reports, 1 Pet Report, 1 false Report)

02 January. At about 4:30 a.m. near downtown Banff a cougar attacked a large dog (Husky) sleeping in her doghouse. Sarah escaped and was treated by a veterinarian with antibiotics and released. "...because cats' mouths and claws are full of bacteria, it's a huge problem with cat injuries, unique to their biology," explained the dog's owner John Peck.  Source:  (Scott Crowson and Grady Semmens; Calgary Herald, Encyclopedia, Herald files 01/03/2001) (February 5, 2001 Issue of Wildlife Encounters; A lesson unlearned; Candis McLean)

02 January. At about 7 a.m., a woman walking her dog along a wooded residential trail was attacked by a mountain lion in Banff, Alberta, Canada. She stumbled across a cougar and its fresh elk kill. Cheryl Hyde, 37, who works at Banff town hall, said it walked right up to her, and at first she thought it was a big dog in the pre-dawn darkness. When she realized it was a cougar, she started screaming and backing up, but backyard fences blocked her way. She slipped on the snow and fell, kicking at the cougar to stop it from pouncing.

Neighbor Gary Doyle heard Hyde's screams, flew out of bed, threw on his housecoat, fell down the stairs, knocked over a piano bench, put on his shoes, and ran out the door. Doyle opened up his back gate where the cougar had the woman and her schnauzer backed up against the fence, pulled the terrified duo into his yard, and slammed the gate shut.

Neighbors said they saw the cougar slink away, but reported seeing it in the area later that morning. Park wardens closed the trail and removed the 200-pound elk carcass so the cat would not return for its kill.  Source:  (Scott Crowson and Grady Semmens; Calgary Herald; Encyclopedia, Herald files: 01/03/2001)

31 January. Biology students, Jessie Dickson, 34 and Brianna Merrick, 28 were stalked by the mountain
lion (pictured here) at noon while gathering information for their studies in Alum Rock Park, a city park at the border of San Jose, California. The women were hiking down a steep trail when Jessie Dickson saw some movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked at the source of the movement and saw a mountain lion just fifteen feet from them. Her camera was around her neck so she began to take pictures of it. (Click the thumbnail at the right to see the "Ghost Cat".) She believed the lion was going to run away, but when the lion began to move toward them, she was quite shocked. Both women yelled at it and tried to make themselves look bigger. This did not deter the lion which continued moving towards them. Jessie then began to snarl like a vicious dog. The lion looked right at her, and she tried to be even more convincing, making a mock lunge at the lion. When she did this, the lion jumped away into the bushes, but not far. The students couldn't see the lion but knew it was in the bushes. They were trapped because whichever direction on the trail they chose would take them by where they thought the lion was. After five minutes, they gathered their courage and began to make their way down the trail. At the same, time a rancher on horseback whose cattle had strayed into the park came up the trail accompainied by two dogs. They told him what happened and pointed into the bushes where they believed the lion to be. At that time the lion jumped from the bushes, leapt up the hill, and disappeared.  Source:  E-mails from Jessie Dickson; 04/18/2001 and 04/19/2001

21 February. A Campbell River man, Gene Sloan, and his wife, Penny, were attacked at night in their
makeshift cabin by Rupert Arm, British Columbia, 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of Port Hardy. They were sitting by the fire, playing crib, when they heard something crashing into the plastic sheet wall of their pole-frame cabin. Penny took a glance and wrote it off as a deer. Sloan took a closer look and saw the face of a cougar looking in, and he was trying to get inside. Mindful of the recent Nostdal attack, in panic mode, he tried to prevent the cougar outside his cabin from tearing through the 6 millimetres of thin plastic sheet. First he booted him in the face and the cougar appeared stunned, but then started attacking again. He yelled to his wife to grab their axe. He hit the cougar repeatedly, cutting up the cougar pretty badly.

The wounded animal retreated into the bush, and Sloan called the conservation officer who hunted the emaciated cougar down. District conservation officer Ken Fujino said the area -- including Port Hardy, Port Alice, Port MacNeill and Zeballos -- has had a spike in cougar sightings of late. He blames a decline in the deer population.  Source:  (Canada NewsWire; Campbell River Couple Survives Cougar Attack)

05 April. This account is a false report by the Las Vegas Mercury (including photo shown) which I leave here for other researchers to be warned that some "modern" newspapers think it acceptable to excuse such a deception by calling it obvious satire. Such sloppy newspapers may be striving to be cute but this one is arrogantly unapologetic for their poor understanding of what constitutes true satire.  At about 6:00 p.m. Dave Venicci, a Summerlin, Nevada, civil engineeer was attacked in his own back yard possibly by a rare albino mountain lion spotted previously by several other residents in the Las Vegas suburb. When he went over to get a piece of balsa wood he was working with that blew beneath his mesquite tree, he heard a deep growl, looked up--and that's the last thing he remembers. Hearing a commotion, his wife came out to find Venicci lying in the grass, covered in blood. She called paramedics. Later she declined to be quoted in the news.

Venicci's hospital report stated that he had extreme lacerations on both ears and severe punctures/lacerations on the lateral scalp area indicative of a "forceful animal bite." It appeared Venicci had his whole head bitten by the mountain lion, which was encamped in or near his mesquite tree.

A Metro spokesperson confirmed that 911 dispatchers received six calls between 6:03 and 6:09 p.m. from Venicci's neighbors who saw the animal after the probable lion attack. According to the calls, the mountain lion padded along the block wall separating back yards. Metro officers arrived on the scene but failed to intercept the animal.  Source:  (Las Vegas Mercury; Summerlin's newest neighbor: 'Thundercat'; Andrew Kiraly; 06/06/2001) Note: The Las Vegas Mercury has ceased publishing. The Mercury's owner, Stephens Media Group, has purchased Las Vegas CityLife and decided to make CityLife its flagship in the alternative newsweekly arena.

06 May. About 25 or 30 miles west of Hinton, Oklahoma, 46-year-old, 180 pound, 5' 10" Jeffrey Major was walking alone in the woods at about 3:30 p.m. when he sneezed and apparently awakened a large blue-eyed cougar laying on a ledge about 10 feet above him. It growled and hissed at him. Startled and scared, he was careful to make no sound. Then with great determination he broke his stare and kept walking. Apparently more startled itself than hungry, the cougar did not lunge. At the point he began walking, a most unexpected security patrol jeep came over the hill and he was taken safely from the area.

• See the helpful and captivating fleshed out details in this report in Major's own words HERE.
• See Major's unnerving 2nd 2005 encounter summarized BELOW.

Source: 2 e-mails from Jeffrey Major; 11/28/2005

2002    (2 Pet Reports including 1 human non-injury)

14 September. Ali Forest's pet lamb was killed by a lion or lions in Healdsburg, California.

My Name is Ali Forest. I am 14 years old and in 4-H. I had a lamb that I bottle fed since she was 2 days old. She followed me everywhere and was my best friend. She thought she was a dog. I went outside Saturday morning to go feed her, and I found her laying on the ground all torn up. Her intestines and guts were all over everything. I called a friend of mine who is a sheep owner, and he came out and looked at it. He said it was a mountain lion, so we went looking for footprints and found two sets, a mom and baby. They were never found.

Fish and game was notified of the attack.  Source:  E-mail from Ali Forest, 09/14/2002

25 September. Augustus and Joanne Smithee were watching television around 9:45 p.m. in Glennville, California, when they heard their dog, Cassiar, barking and screaming. A 5-foot-long female mountain lion had grabbed the dog, so Smithee ran for his shotgun while his wife picked up a chunk of wood and flung it at the lion. The distracted lion let go of the dog, but then began to chase the fleeing dog and his wife. Smithee said he killed the cat with two birdshot shells--the only two he could find and load in the rush. He said "The lion was about two steps from being in the house." He figured the entire thing happened in less than a minute.

The Smithees took their dog to the veterinarian. The border collie came back with a lot of stitches and a $403 bill. "The state should pay the bill because the lion is the state's protected animal," Smithee said. "We're going to lose some kids here one of these days." Wildlife officials came by the next day to pick up the lion's carcass. Smithee said that was fine with him. "It's their lion."  Source:  The Bakersfield Californian; Man kills cougar ready to pounce; CHRISTINA VANCE, Californian staff writer; 09/26/2002

2003    (1 Non-injury Report)

12 November. At about 5:15 pm (dusk), 26-year-old John Kirk, a 6 foot 5 inch tall man weighing 190 pounds was returning from a fitness jog to his fathers's rural home near Witts Springs, Arkansas. He heard something large walking approximately 60 yards behind him. A deer had bounded across his path earlier, and he assumed that the noise was that deer. Increasing his pace, however, he managed to get behind a tree about 80 yards in front of the noise he heard. The cougar, which was now paralleling his path along a higher bluff, lept on a rock above the brush and poppped it's head out to try to see John, who now could see that it was not a deer but a cougar.

He could hear the cat approching his hideout behind the tree, deliberately setting each foot down in silent, hunting mode. When the cat was 40 to 50 yards from him, he raised his arms over his head to make himself appear taller and more agressive, and he began yelling, clapping his hands and stomping his feet, but the cougar only laid it's ears back. When it showed no fear of him, crouched down, and stared at him, as if preparing to attack, John decided to chance outrunning the cat for the approximately 150 feet (yards?) remaining to his father's house. He cleared the 3 foot fence around the yard and got to the side door of the house and was finally let in.

When John and his father Jerry analyzed it from a mark John had noted on his person for the shoulder height of the cat, it was 2 inches below the kitchen counter (of standard height). John thought it had a bigger (wider?) head than a normal for a cougar but a body definitely like a cougar's. It was unusual enough to wonder if it might be a hybird. John estimated it to weigh about 200 pounds and judged it to be healthy and in it's prime.

The previous week, a neighbor and experienced woodsman had spotted a cougar track about 3 miles to the south that measured about 5 inches.   Sources:  (Phone call from Jerry Kirk) (e-mail from reporter Jane Williams) (e-mail from Ken Davison, Leslie, AR)

2005    (3 Non-injury Reports, 2 Hunter Reports)

April. In the dark at about 4:00 a.m., Jeffrey Major (see above for his first Oklahoma encounter) was driving to the gym. He was about 5+ miles east of El Reno, Oklahoma, when his car broke down. He had pushed it about a quarter of a mile in the dark and had gotten out again and checked his license tag when he called for service on his cell phone. Back inside the truck and waiting for assistance, he heard growling, and a cougar approached and circled him in it for about 10 to 20 minutes. Finally he saw the lights of the wrecker coming toward him, and the cougar departed. Again he was rescued by another in a vehicle.

I was driving my pick-up to the gym at 4:00 am this past April. The clutch had been giving me trouble for a number of months and this morning I was about 10 miles east of my house in open prairie. When it gave out, I realized what was happening and tried to get back home. The engine kept running but the clutch was gone; I kept it running with the lights on, got out and pushed for about a quarter mile and realized this wouldn't work for the next 9 miles or so. I got back in, called my roadside assistance and answered their questions, getting out and checking my license number in the process. They said someone would be out to get me in about 30 minutes and to "stay with my vehicle." No problem there. It was pitch-black out and the wind suddenly turned out of the north. I went ahead and shut the engine off and the lights and waited. Out of the dark about 50' behind me I heard this deep, warbling growl that escalated into a throaty yowling and back down deep again. It was too high off the ground for a bobcat. In addition, the sound was too loud and the length of the sound proved it was being made by a bigger set of lungs. This conclusion was reinforced by a barely distinguishable (unmistakable) outline of the big cat and a pair of eyes glaring out of the dark about the height the first cougar had been. Again, I thought my heart would stop. I hunkered down into the seat so it couldn't see me as I listened to it circling the pickup, getting closer and louder over the next 15-20 minutes. I could see the lights of the wrecker about a quarter of a mile away and I guess the cougar did, too; it stopped howling at me and took off. I was never so glad to see another human being in my life. The scariest part of this whole episode was that I had been out of the pickup in the dark for a long time pushing my pickup and then getting out to check my license plate once I had stopped and had called roadside assistance.

• See more detail regarding Jeffrey Major's 2nd incident HERE.
• See Jeffrey Major's first Oklahoma cougar encounter ABOVE.

Source: 2 e-mails from Jeffrey Major; 11/28/2005

23 June. Near dusk after a stormy evening (about 9:00 pm), a couple from New York City was retiring to their tent at the Cathedral Valley Campground, a remote campground in the northern portion of Capitol Reef National Park, near Loa, Utah. They were the only campers present in the campground at the time. Sally Gall had just entered their tent, and suggested to Jack Stephens, who had been quietly reading for over an hour, that he take one last look at the twilight sky. He sat up to take a look, and upon doing so, observed a mountain lion at a distance of roughly five feet, front leg in mid-air, as if frozen in mid-stride, heading directly toward the entrance to the tent. Very calmly he told Sally there was a mountain lion looking into their tent. Not knowing if he might be kidding, Sally sat up, looked out, and then laid back down and pulled the sleeping bag over her head and "went stiff as a board with fear."

As Stephens and the lion stared at one another, Jack then did what he had read one is supposed to do: He tried yelling, waving his arms and, to the extent possible being constrained in a small tent, attempted to appear large. The lion did not respond in any fashion. It just stood there staring, paw still in the air, like it was deciding what to do. That's when Stephens felt he had to do something more drastic.

With no knife to cut through the tough tent material, and no camera or flashlight at hand to flash at it, he had no choice but to crawl over Sally, unzip the tent and try to stand up. After unzipping the tent, and as he was exiting, Stephens noticed that Gall's hiking shoes were placed at the tent's entrance, and so he grabbed one and flung it at the cat. The shoe struck the lion (beaned it right in the forehead, as Stephens phrased it), and bounced upward, at which point the lion rose on its hind legs, grabbed the shoe with both forepaws, pulled it into it's mouth, and turned around and bounded away, shoe in mouth.

Adrenaline charged, the couple armed themselves with an axe and crowbar and turned on every light they had--lantern, headlights, flashlights--and built a fire in the fire pit. They decided that driving out on the storm ravaged 4-wheel road was out of the question at night. They finally went back to bed hours later with the lantern blazing right outside the tent. The following morning, the couple searched for the missing shoe. Though they were able to follow the lion's tracks for some distance, they were not able to locate the footwear.

Stephens reported the cougar as appearing young, healthy, and uninjured. He guessed it weighed about 80 to 100 pounds. He felt it was male, though he wasn't certain of it's gender. Regarding it's youth, he noted that it's paws seemed as if the animal could grow into them a bit, like a young dog's.

A lost-and-found report was submitted, and the couple departed the park en-route to Moab, Utah, to visit Arches and Canyonlands National Parks--and to purchase a new pair of shoes.

Source: (e-mails from Jack Stephens to my co-author Tom Chester 06/27/2005, and to me 06/27/2005, 06/30/2005, 07/09/2005) NOTE: This report is modified from a document prepared by Capitol Reef National Park Biologist Dave Worthington. To see a fleshed out account of this incident and some comments about it as originally presented by Jack Stephens, himself Click Here.

22 July. Before sundown, Ranger Jeff Thompson in the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness within the Leadville, Colorado, Ranger District, was stalked by 4 cougars on Rich Creek Trail, with one of them charging him and grabbing his sleeping bag that he used to make himself look larger.

He had hung his food in a tree at least 200 feet away from his tent after dinner at about 5:45 p.m. and gone into his tent early because the bugs were so thick. He was reading a book when he heard some noises that were not loud enough to alarm him. But he stopped reading 3 or 4 times and would listen for about 5 seconds. Finally he heard a noise that made him scramble for his tent zipper and look out. He saw a cougar approximately 10 feet in front of him. Realizing laying down in a tent was not a good situation, he calmly and slowly stood up. He tried to make no sudden movements, and he did not look it in the eyes.

Once he stood up, he saw 3 more mountain lions, 1 to his left and 2 to his right behind a couple of trees about 30 feet away. He knew he should try to look big, so he reached down and grabbed his sleeping bag and raised it into the air. His shovel was leaning on a fallen tree about 5 feet behind him, so he also backed up to grab that. He made noise banging the shovel on a rock, and 2 of the lions slowly walked away. Another one ran towards him. The lion that ran at him grabbed his sleeping bag out of his hand, damaging the bag. He took the shovel and struck the lion on the back. The lion then scurried away to meet the other lions which were heading for some thicker trees about 100 feet away.

After they went in to the trees, he began to pack up. He decided to leave some gear and especially to leave his food hanging in the distant tree in order to move quickly and get out of there. As he started down to the trail, 3 of the lions came bounding down the hill to follow him. He made a lot of noise to try to scare them away, but it didn't seem to bother them. Thompson then decided to call for his partner on the radio to make him aware. He was camped in the Mount Massive Wilderness and had already turned his radio off for the evening. Thompson then called for anyone out there, and John Markalunas came back and offered any support he could, including a helicopter.

After about 20 minutes of being followed, he crossed a creek and waited to see if they would cross with him. When he didn't see them for a couple minutes, nervous because he was running out of light, he started to run for the trail head. Once he started to run, he made significant distance and got back to the truck just as the light was fading away. He called Pueblo, Colorado, dispatch from the truck, told them he was safe, and proceeded to the office.   Sources:  e-mails from Linda Dickman; 08/14/2005 and from Rick Casey; 09/14/2005 that recount this story, allegedly written up by Jeff Thompson, himself.) (Phone call from Jeff Thompson; 11/19/2005)

02 August. 24-year-old Jeremy Silva (6 foot 1 inches tall - 175 pounds) and his 18-year-old brother Andrew Silva (5 foot 11 inches tall - 195 pounds) had decided to return before dark from an exploratory hunting trip when they encountered a cougar in western Merced County of California. Jeremy had hunted since he was 13-years-old, but his brother did not hunt. He had hunted many times alone because of his weird work schedule, but he tried not to, which is why he had convinced Andrew to come out with him. This was the first time he was accompanied by his brother, and he felt it turned out to be a perfect time, as he believed that this lion would have attacked him if he was alone.

The stalking began at 7 p.m. and didn't end until close to 9 p.m.. Jeremy guessed it was an adult male because of its large, if slightly scrawny appearing frame. He estimated it weighed approximately 100 pounds. It had a beautiful reddish brown coat with a black tip on its tail. What he did not understand is why it was stalking he and his brother when there were two deer a ridge over, one of those deer being a young fawn.

In Western Merced County of California my brother and I were stalked by a mountain lion for close to 2 hours. We were in there looking for deer for the upcoming rifle season. I was armed with a bow and arrow in case we saw a wild pig.

The mountain lion encounter never crossed my mind because they always run away, right? Well, my brother was laying down sleeping a couple hundred yard from where I was glassing an area [scanning with binoculars] for deer. I returned to awaken him and tell him there were two deer on the hill above him. We decided to walk out because the sun was going down, and we were going to be walking in the dark.

As soon as we started up the hill above where he lay, I noticed a cats head. I believed it to be a bobcat, so I told him to get out the video camera. Right after he got it out of his backpack, I identified the cat to be a mountain lion. It stood up and walked up the hill, staying very low to the ground in the dry grass. I saw its large long body and enormous tail and knew it was, indeed, an adult mountain lion.

He lay in the grass with only the top of his head showing again, and I then knew he was not afraid of us. We needed to be careful. I gave my brother my hunting knife before the trip and told him to stop filming and be ready to fight off this cat. After we made some noise, the lion slowly disappeared over the hill. My brother had to go in the lion's direction to head out. We went side hill to the north and stayed on alert mode.

To make a long story short, the cat appeared 5 different times and jumped across the dozer line road we were walking the last time in the dark. I was yelling and making noise the whole way out, snarling and growling and constantly scanning with my flashlight. I think we were lucky to get out of there without any physical damage. I have always been fond and interested in seeing a mountain lion because the are so hard to see in the wild. I have changed my mind and hope never to see one. There were two deer within 500 yards of him, and he choose us as his prey. Luckily we were heads up and did enough to keep this lion from attacking.

I thank god that my brother came with me because I have no doubt that this lion would have attacked if I was alone. I wonder if I would have killed the lion would fish and game believe that it chased me for 2 to 3 miles. It was a serious threat to me and my brother. If I had an opportunity to kill this lion I would have. I am willing to risk the fine or jail time to come home in one piece. Mountain Lions and Cougars are not animals that you can count on running away from humans.

Source: e-mails from Jeremy Silva; 08/10/2005 and 08/11/2005

21 October. While elk hunting in the woods of central Idaho about one hour before sunrise, Dale Whitmore had an encounter with a cougar. Whitmore who is 6' 1" and weighs 230 pounds was wearing full camouflage with scent free lining and was alone at the time. The location was Payette National Forest on Bush Mountain, ten miles from New Meadows, Idaho. This is part of the little Salmon River drainage.

With the help of a nearly full moon, he walked into a heard of elk that were both above and below the old logging road he was walking on. He quietly followed them until it got light, having determined the herd bull was just above him and the cows were below him, all in pretty dense brush. While hugging the upper side of the road to keep out of sight, Whitmore reported feeling something like a sixth sense that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he had a definite feeling of something wrong. Whitmore stopped and looked around but didn't see anything. Then he noticed a old wind fall tree that extended out over his head. As his eyes followed it back over his head, about eight feet up, he saw a cougar. When he made eye contact and reflexively stepped back, the animal went from lying down, or a very low crouch, to four feet together, back arched, teeth bared, and muscles tensed--in just a fraction of a second. Later he remembered a subconscious thought that the canine teeth looked more like elephant tusks.

As he stepped back he brought his rifle up more as a barrier between them than as a weapon. The cougar was so close that Whitmore said he remembered the bright yellow eyes just looking at him and then changing to something that was hard to describe, maybe a hateful glare. It was definitely a momentary shock to him. When the cougar jumped, however, he fired from about chest height. It seemed like slow motion, and Whitmore could remember all of the details except pulling the trigger. This came as a surprise, which he doesn't think was a conscious act. The round went through his leg just above his pad, entered his chest and exited behind his far leg. The shot spun him around in mid air, and he hit the ground running. Whitmore found him about thirty yards into the brush dead. Upon later examination, he discovered the round penetrated the heart.

Whitmore said it was not the first cougar that he'd seen, but it was the first really close encounter, with other sightings having been from a distance or when one crossed a road in front of his vehicle. He thinks it was significant that he was in the immediate proximity of an elk herd, and the animal was attempting/primed to feed.

I went back to the site of the confrontation just to settle in my own mind about what his intentions were and...

1. He was hunting the elk
2. He found a perfect ambush site
3. He was poised and primed to make a kill
4. I walked into his ambush as scent free as I could get. I think this possibly caused some confusion on his part, but the eye contact definitely triggered the aggression.

In summary, I don't know if the cougar would have shown the aggression if the circumstances were different, not in a herd of elk, but in this instance he definitely transferred his intent to kill an elk to me. It is very difficult to describe what it was like to be that close, it was unimaginable that a cougar would let a human get that near without fleeing. I was either prey or mistaken for prey and became prey.

As to the animal's intent, if I had not stopped directly under him, he would have had a clear shot at my back, I don't even want to speculate on what the outcome might have been. When I made eye contact with the cougar, he went from waiting to very aggressive. I believe if I had not been so close to directly under him, he would have leapt at that point. When I instinctively stepped back, that was a mistake on my part because he now had room to jump.

Until this event, Whitmore had never believed cougars were a true threat to humans. He has since modified his opinion. Further concerning him was the fact that when he told the Idaho Fish and Game the details of what happened, he was not asked to make any type of report or to give the details of the incident for any type of documentation. His main concern is one shared by many others having encounters--that the concept most people have of cougars being non threatening predators is perpetuated by officials' omissions/denials. His now informed-by-experience opinion is that the threat can be very real, and people who enjoy the outdoors need to know that they are not just amazing, "I saw one" animals.

The cougar was an apparently mature adult male weighing about 170 pounds and measuring seven and one half feet from nose to tail. The Idaho Fish and Game personnel would not comment on the age. They told Whitmore to call back in a year for results of age testing a molar from the cougar. The only comment Idaho Fish and Game personnel made was that it had exceptionally large canines (which Whitmore already knew!). The cougar was in excellent health and exhibited a lot of body fat. It did have two recent gouges in its hide that appeared to have been made by an antler.

Source: e-mails from Dale Whitmore 10/22/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/28/2005, and 10/29/2005

2006    (1 Non-injury Report)

06 May. 22-year-old Hugh Faust just wanted to sneak in some bird watching before the post-graduation parties at the University of Wyoming in early May. He parked his SUV by the side of the road in the Snowy Range and began a slow plod up a well-worn game trail near Woods Landing. By the time Faust saw the mountain lion -- crouching and staring him in the eye -- he was just 30 feet from the big cat. Hugh Faust's own account follows, written just 4 hours after a cougar attacked him, Saturday, 05/06/2006, at approximately 12:30 pm in Medicine Bow National Forest, Sheep Mountain, Wyoming.

At around 12:10 PM I parked on National Forest land along a dirt road (RD 47) that connects Albany Wyoming with Woods Landing. I had my binoculars and walked up a little draw/gully that had Sage on the left side (south side), and aspen, spruce/fir mix on the right side (north side).

I was on a fairly used game trail along the gully around 150 meters from my car when a pine cone rolled down the hill and bumped into my shoe. I thought that was odd because there was little wind. I dismissed it. Two minutes later I heard two red squirrels giving alarm calls around 100 feet ahead (up the game trail). I stopped and thought, "They are either calling at me, a snake, an owl, or a mountain lion, and if it is a Mtn. lion, it is already gone."

Two minutes later and around 250-300 meters from the car in the draw I stopped and looked up. I saw a Mtn. lion crouched very low staring at me from about 30 feet away. I immediately ripped off my jacket (just a button up work shirt) and binoculars, started yelling threw my binoculars (hitting it in the head), and took three steps quickly towards it. It came quickly down the slope and met me at the end of my third step, and gave a swat that barely grazed the tip of my left ring finger. I simultaneously broke an aspen branch across its side and back. It just spit at me, and crept closer and really tensed up. I kept yelling at the top of my lungs, swinging my jacket and hitting it with sticks and rocks.

When I hit the lion with an object it generally closed his eyes or simply looked at the object as it bounced off, then immediately the cat returned his focus to me. If I ever paused in yelling or waving my arms he would stare much more intently, tense up, and his tail would twitch. I kept hitting him with sticks and rocks while trying to slowly walk backwards. He stayed from 5-8 feet from me this whole time, completely focused on me and in a very low crouch.

I decided I would try and cross the gully and get into the sagebrush, and away from the cover of the aspen and conifers. There was a little ditch I had to jump across, and I couldn't jump over it backwards. So while still yelling and flailing my arms I picked up two baseball sized rocks. I hit him as hard as I could in the head with the first one, and immediately turned and jumped the ditch. Upon landing I spun around yelling and hit him with the second rock (he was already in the air jumping over the ditch as well). He stopped again about 5-8 feet from me. I kept hitting it with more rocks and slowly backed into the sage and farther up the hill (but farther from cover). He followed in a stalk weaving through the sage (trying to get a better angle of attack?).

Any time I turned my head a little it would move in very quick. When I was around 100 feet into the sagebrush the lion started staying a little farther back (40-50 feet). A few times I would turn and try to take a few quick steps down the hill towards the car. When I turned around it quickly had closed the distance to around 10 feet, but would stop when I yelled and threw rocks. It was still in a full crouch each time it crept in close. I continued to back down the hill (it was steep around 45 degrees) and it followed me all the way to the car but stayed around 40 feet back. I jumped in the car and could still see him in the sagebrush crouched.

I loaded my camera with film, and jumped out of the car and on the roof. I scanned around for a few seconds but didn't see the cat, so I called it a day and drove home and reported the incident immediately to the Wyoming Game and Fish department.

The whole ordeal lasted around 10 minutes. The first five were in the trees and a standoff. The second five, I was backing away from the cover and to the car. The wind had been slight but blowing up the draw the whole time, so I couldn't have surprised the lion. It looked to be in good condition with no obvious injuries. It had good dentition and no broken teeth. I would GUESS its weight at around 110-130 pounds. I do not know if it was a male or female, but its size looked larger than female leopards (I have worked with these cats in South Africa).

I kept eye contact throughout the whole ordeal, and feel I never scared the cat at all, but did stop it from making the final pounce. I have tracked leopards, spotted hyenas, cheetahs, African lions, and African wild dogs on foot in South Africa and I have never seen any animal this intent and persistent. I believe I almost walked into its ambush and if I had not seen the cat it would have blindsided me from behind or the side as I walked by. I honestly thought it was going to pounce any second of the five-minute standoff, and believe it would have if I had even flinched on the initial rush, or ever presented an opportunity.

I returned to the site two days later to get my binoculars. There was no kill in the immediate area so I don't believe it was on one when we had the run in. I found mountain lion tracks leading up the draw but on the sagebrush side. This leads me to believe that after the encounter he walked back up the draw on the opposite side of the ambush. And, yes, I did find my binoculars.

Sources: (email from Hugh's mother, Lynn Frierson Faust; 05/20/2006) (Water and Woods Net; Student Fends Off Mountain Lion); 05/17/2006) (the Casper Star-Tribune) (The Jackson Hole Star-Tribune)

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This page by Linda Lewis may contain updates and retain some expanded attack accounts
for Mountain Lion Attacks On People in the U.S. and Canada by Thomas Jay Chester
If you know of an attack not listed here, please emailme or Tom Chester.

Permission freely granted to reference or even reproduce this page as long as links remains intact
which credit all sources and Tom Chester at http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks.html
As his was the rare and comprehensive research I found for multiple lion attacks in North America