# Biggest "prey animal" of Mountain Lions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075 "2009-01-13T12:52:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/1 "2009-01-13T12:52:10Z")
What is the largest animal that a mountain lion/cougar could take down? I know that they are capable of killing people and deer. Would a healthy adult bison be completely out of the question? ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/2 "2009-01-13T13:50:24Z")
The very nature of the predator would be to look at anything that moves as food. Then look at predatory humans, What do you see? The laws of nature would be very similar, If one can one will. and then add in, if one must. Weather man or beast (if the man is without counselor). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/3 "2009-01-13T14:06:33Z")
> [@Gbro](#): > > Weather man or beast (if the man is without counselor). It also depends on which way the wind blows. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/4 "2009-01-13T14:21:53Z")
Elk. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/5 "2009-01-13T14:31:02Z")
The info I’ve been able to find online indicates that cougars will prey on elk (cows ~200 kg, bulls ~300 kg) and moose (cows ~300 kg, bulls ~500 kg). However, your average adult bison is about 450 kg for a cow and over 800 kg for a bull, and both sexes are built like freakin’ tanks. I’ll defer to a naturalist who has more experience with these things, but it doesn’t really seem likely to me that a lone cougar could take down a bison. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/6 "2009-01-13T14:44:28Z")
Looking up bison themselves, it seems that their only major natural predator are wolves who work in concert to take down bison cows or calves. Hunts can take several hours for the wolves to exhaust and run down one of the herd. Doesn’t sound like anything a solo cougar could accomplish. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/7 "2009-01-13T15:16:28Z")
> [@gytalf2000](#): > > Would a healthy adult bison be completely out of the question? Probably. A pack of wolves has real trouble killing a bison, and generally can manage only young, weak and injured animals. Even then it isn’t easy. I know a guy who has witnessed a bunch of these (from a spotter aircraft). It can take (as Jophiel notes) many hours for the bison to die. The technique is “death from a thousand cuts” - wolves wait their chance when the bison is distracted by others to rush in for a bite that causes additional bleeding and loss of mobility. Cougars do not hunt in packs and pretty much lack the equipment to kill an adult bison. They would be vulnerable to damage from the bison - and for a lone predator, any significant injury is likely to limit hunting success and thus be life-threatening. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/8 "2009-01-13T15:20:12Z")
> [@Gbro](#): > > The very nature of the predator would be to look at anything that moves as food. Yet apparently the only predator of which this is true is the polar bear. ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/9 "2009-01-13T16:35:20Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Yet apparently the only predator of which this is true is the polar bear. I concede that the Polar Bear would be an example of a predator in the purist sense, however just because a cougar is reluctant to attempt dining on a bison is not proof one would not look upon the bison as food. What would happen if a cougar was penned up with a bison and there was no food besides grass in the pen? Would the cat turn into a vegetarian? Or just lie down and perish from starvation? I will add that the definition of Vegetarian in my personal dictionary is; Indian word for lousy hunter;) ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/10 "2009-01-13T18:20:11Z")
> [@Gbro](#): > > What would happen if a cougar was penned up with a bison and there was no food besides grass in the pen? Most likely the bison would attack and kill the cougar. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/11 "2009-01-13T18:32:06Z")
I read about how, in the late 1800’s, people would stage cage fights pitting various animals against eachother. A healthy bull bison was able to kill any other challenger including a grizzly. Sorry, no cite. ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/12 "2009-01-13T18:52:21Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Most likely the bison would attack and kill the cougar. Yes Most **Likely**! ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/13 "2009-01-13T19:26:22Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Looking up bison themselves, it seems that their only major natural predator are wolves… Well sure, _no_w. But once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was the [smilodon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodon#Diet_and_hunting)… ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/14 "2009-01-13T20:28:44Z")
> [@](#): > > I concede that the Polar Bear would be an example of a predator in the purist sense, however just because a cougar is reluctant to attempt dining on a bison is not proof one would not look upon the bison as food. Anecdote: When I was growing up our cat.(8 pounds) would look at cows(1000 pounds) and get into hide, stalk, silent mode creeping up near them. I am convinced that she looked upon them as a food source, and was hoping for some great kitty epiphany as to how to take one of them down. She never tried, at least that I saw, but she did spend hundreds of hours contemplating the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/15 "2009-01-13T23:36:10Z")
> [@Gbro](#): > > What would happen if a cougar was penned up with a bison and there was no food besides grass in the pen? What animals may do under grest stress is often not a good guide to their normal habits. Humans have been shown to fully capable of eating such things as mice, cockroaches and other humans when necessary for survival - but it would be wrong to conclude that these are normal prey. It may be worth observing that Jim Corbett, a considerable expert on tiger behavior, noted that humans - extremely easy prey for tigers - are not part of their normal diet, and indeed are hunted only in rare cases. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/16 "2009-01-13T23:49:33Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > The info I’ve been able to find online indicates that cougars will prey on elk (cows ~200 kg, bulls ~300 kg) and moose (cows ~300 kg, bulls ~500 kg). Are those elk/moose the cougar typically preys on actually **adults**?, however? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/17 "2009-01-14T02:49:24Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Humans have been shown to fully capable of eating such things as mice, cockroaches and other humans when necessary for survival - but it would be wrong to conclude that these are normal prey. No, it wouldn’t. Those things are all normal prey for humans by any objective definition of the word normal. For most of our history those things were regularly on the menu of most if not all of humanity. Some people have stopped eating those things very, very recently, but large numbers of people to this day still regularly eat cockroaches and mice. Eating of humans is still practiced by hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people. And probably as recently as 2000 years ago cannibalism was practiced by the majority of human groups. ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/18 "2009-01-14T04:07:24Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > It may be worth observing that Jim Corbett, a considerable expert on tiger behavior, noted that humans - extremely easy prey for tigers - are not part of their normal diet, and indeed are hunted only in rare cases. That is to say they do recognize, or associate human’s with negative past experiences such as being pursued by humans, shot at(loud noise+human=run). Other nummy food is easier. Go to a zoo and stand back and watch the large cats. When adults walk in I have witnessed no activity, Then when a child walks by a cat will pace the cage. One of the workers at the Como zoo in St. Paul MN explained why they do that as a child is easy prey for the cat. Also if you see a male cat turn away from you, Duck as their very well could be piss coming your way! The worker pointed that out also. This was a cat house with the cage and animals very close to the public. And you don’t want to know what the king of beasts did! ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/19 "2009-01-14T04:30:05Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Eating of humans is still practiced by hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people. And probably as recently as 2000 years ago cannibalism was practiced by the majority of human groups. Err. Which millions of people are currently cannibals? Enlistment in the Royal Navy isn’t anywhere near that high. Or are you talking about transubstantiation? And I can’t say as how I’ve ever heard of cannibalism being prevalent in the Roman, Parthian, or Han empires, either. How do you get a majority without them? Are you talking about routine consumption of humans as a food source, or infrequent ritual practices, or what? IOW, cite? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075/20 "2009-01-14T04:33:00Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > For most of our history those things were regularly on the menu of most if not all of humanity. Agreed, for such things as mice and cockroaches. My remarks were definitely from the perspective of modern western society. > [@](#): > > Eating of humans is still practiced by hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people. And probably as recently as 2000 years ago cannibalism was practiced by the majority of human groups. I’m skeptical here. I’ve never found the recent “Cannibalism is incredibly rare” argument at all persuasive, but where is the evidence that it’s as common as you suggest here? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-prey-animal-of-mountain-lions/481075.md?page=2)