Right, most cougar attacks are done from behind and lightening quick. Bear spray, pepper spray, knife, firearm are only as effective as the ability to access said item when attacked. The best weapon is to not be alone and aid the victim by using a large branch or rocks to beat off the attacker.

Even groups are subjective to cougar attacks. In several instances in California a cougar was attacking mountain bikers, always going for the last person in the group. i believe this happen two times with serious injuries to the victim before the cougar was killed. One bikers death was attributed to the cougar and had been solo.

While most cougar attacks are in areas next to the human/wild
interface where they have lost their fear of humans (read
Beast in the Garden), this attack was in one of the more remote
spots in the lower 48. I saw a wolf on that trail about 30 years
ago when it wanted a closer look at a lab pup that was hiking
with us. They recently released some Grizzlies in the same area
just north of the border.


There have been other cougar attacks in this general area and also some
shot for being menacing and stalking people. One was hanging out
around the school in Colville watching the kids.

Cougar attacks are like being struck by lightning, there is a very
low probability of occurance unless you are standing on a peak in an electrical storm.

"... Cougar attacks are like being struck by lightning ..."

From NOAA: Four hundred people get struck by lightning every year. Between 1997 and 2006, 437 people in the United States died from lightning strikes.

Perhaps a different simile would be better?

And the difference between rare and never can be terminal.

What about carrying one of those smallish airhorns instead of (or in addition to) pepper spray? You could conceivably use it even if your head was in a cougar's mouth.

How many people facing a predator remember to check which way the wind is blowing before they use their pepper spray, or have time to check? Finding yourself downwind of the pepper spray could incapacitate you more than the predator, and result more in a seasoning effect than a repellent effect.

As to the people in the link of the original post here, why were they wandering around, separated? It would seem that a cougar might be discouraged by a group of four.

A little more common sense might change 'rare' to 'never'.

Yeah. You read it in "Calvin & Hobbes"

There's a YouTube video, I hate it when folks don't post a link, just a sec. . . Wilderness Survival: Building a Survival Kit... About 45 minutes into the lecture he starts discussing interacting with wildlife. At time 52:25 he starts talking Mountain Lions. Good discussion/lecture on the subject.

one of the places i canoe is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota.%80 of my trips are solo.in 25 years i have seen maybe 3 bears and one was on the dirt road on the way to the outfitters bunkhouse.all you read about on the BW forums is BEARS!!!..but no one has every had a problem bear outside a well used campsite near the trail head--or in the case of canoes the landings..none on the portage carrys,in the woods bushwhacking to a remote lake--so on.Bill Mason of canoe fame in Canada said you seldom see large animals in the forest.think hunters, all the work they do to even find something and get close for a shot.having said that--i keep a pepper spray out in the camp and a small one in my pocket on the portages as a security blanket.just my luck i would be the 1 in a 10,000 to get dragged off by a nutzy bear.



HELLO--hello!!!..anyone down there??..hello?

I don't know much about bear spray, since I live in Alabama. But for any decent-sized animal, I think my .45 should work fairly well. The first round may not kill a bear-sized animal, but it should slow it down pretty well to allow me to squeeze off the other 20 rounds.

And I'm fairly sure that not much on this planet will keep coming after 21 rounds of .45acp 230-grain HydraShok. Maybe a moose or elephant, but my chances of running into one of those around here are pretty slim.

That's a really good read. Thanks for posting it.

I have been pepper sprayed; I was a slobbering, crying idiot for 45 minutes before I was able to get enough water on me to clear the stuff. That was 11 years ago and I remember it like it was this morning, very hot stuff and even worse if you are contaminated in the presence of a large aggressive predator.

I was in the Canadian Rockies this summer and noticed many hikers carrying pepper spray. What concerned me was that they were not very careful where or how they carried it. If the can ever discharged in an enclosed space or while operating a vehicle the results could be far worse than the threat of wildlife attack.

I carry pepper spray daily because it is effective, but like all dangerous tools you just need to respect it.

Mike

You REALLLLYYYY don't want pepper spray to cook off inside a vehicle. Be there done that. One less MP scout car in the motor pool.