Bears… no prob, some snakes and the occational po’d beaver I can handle, but let say you and 3 other buddys were hiking and run into a cat. No not fluffy, but some hungry LARGE cat.
(Lets assume the amno you bought was the wrong type for you gun)
I assume that you have no chance of outrunning, climbing, jumping such a beast (though you may outrun your hiking companion which may be all that is needed), what is the plan? The way I suggested is that the hiking party form a semicircle and ‘appear’ to be attacking the cat (allowing an obvious escape route for the cat) but I’m not sure that everyone was on board, nor was I sure that this was the correct way to go.
I heard about a guy who survived a tiger attack by forcing his arm down its throat and choking it to death. He was mauled pretty badly, but he lived and the tiger died. Pretty tough.
We have quite a few mountain cats in the hills 'round these parts and we were always taught to quietly and slowly back away. It worked for me the time I had to do do it.
While I question the advisability of throwing rocks at a cougar that is not actually attacking you (I’ve heard of cases where an attack was triggered by someone throwing rocks at the cat) I agree you should not run away. I know of at least two cases where people were injured out here when they ran from a cougar. This was not because it chased them–it was because they lost their footing on steep mountain trails and fell into a ravine.
I have seen bears, cougars, mountain lions, wild boars, deer, mules, countless snakes, alligators, etc. all while hiking and backpacking. I’ve rarely had any trouble from the fauna around me, but just in case, I carry a 6’8" hardwood walking stick with me. The ground end of the stick is sleeved in steel (to prevent it from wearing away as I use it). The whole piece of wood weighs about 10 pounds. I have some training in the use of a quarterstaff and in the use of polearms (woot! go SCA!).
Anything, even a person, that tries to jump me is gonna get whacked hard. Really hard. A lot.
Only once have I had to use that stick as a weapon, but I NEVER go anywhere with big predators without it.
Same animal. It has many names. They won’t generally attack you when you are facing them. Matter of fact, you’ll likely never see one until it has pounced and is gnawing on you. IF they attack at all, which is very very rare. it it is just sitting there, looking at you, face it, and move away, keepin an eye on it, more or less as DiosaBellissima has said… Don’t run or panic.
So, in reality, you’ll never have a chance to use any tactic to “fend off” a cougar that hasn’t attacked yet. If they were going to attack- they already have.
Snowboarder Bo- indeed- with a good stick like that, you could give a cougar a hard time- but in most cougar atatcks it will have punced and be eating you before you know it’s there. However, yes, a good solid staff like that is a good defence in some circumstances. I have used one to get rid of an agressive rattlesnake.
No problem. If they’re already on me I have knife. And not some pansy-ass-4-inch knife either, I mean a real Crocodile Dundee KNIFE. Had some training in CQB too. (Note: when traversing a forested swamp area I highly recommend keeping a machete in your hand at all times. Not all snakes are on the ground, eh.)
I hike in the mountains all the time. I carry bear spray . Carrying a stick can’t hurt.
It is a last resort if you are going to be attacked. It has been known to be successfully used to halt mountain lion attacks.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think it is true that you won’t see a cat before it attacks you if you are moving.
Any cat likes to observe it’s prey and creep up on it. Deer grazing are a favorite target.
I don’t think that anyone has much chance once a lion is on you. It has a powerful mouth full of teeth and four fistfulls of daggers with which to disembowel you. Play with your housecat and see what it does with it’s back legs.
Bottom line: Take bear spray with you in lion country.
One thing I have read is that big cats generally don’t like to attack you when you are looking at them–they wait until you turn your back, then they jump on your back and grab your neck in their mouth. Some people in S Asian countries wear dark caps with two white spots on the back, because the spots look like eyes and have been found to discourage leopard attacks. -Not totally prevent attacks, mind you, but it’s something.
Yea but then, you’d have to be carrying the catnip around to have it on you, and they’d trail you just by that…
There was a story like this just in the last couple weeks. From India or somewhere. I looked around for it and couldn’t find it (I saw a link on another web forum somewhere…) And I don’t believe a word of it, especially since the guy attacked was “a grandfather” IIRC, which might mean 45 yrs old, but still. The only way possible is if the tiger had no claws or teeth and was DYING OF OLD AGE as it attacked.
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