"There was an incident with a Mountain Lion at a camp roughly a mile below Black Rock Rapid on river right. I talked to the trip leader of this trip and the lion jumped out of the rocks and bushes and attacked her life jacket which had been hanging in a tree. It then turned on a group member who had bent down to get a photo, biting their shoulder and scratching their face.” — (from a cautionary email attributed to Gila National Forest Wilderness River Manager, [Mountain Buzz, March 23, 2023]
I found the above while scrolling through an online discussion among rafters, kayakers, and assorted river rats (such as myself) about a recent incident along a wilderness river in Arizona. As always, a wide range of knowledge freely intermixed with opinion, conjecture and advice. Someone posted a video of the action, then it went private, but not before someone noticed that the camper seemed to be advancing on the lion. Others noticed that he bent down before it attacked. Someone else wondered why somebody was shooting video as the melee progressed, others said the humans should have taken guns. There were stories of other rivers, other mountain lions. I decided to see if I could find a few more details, so searched out some news coverage. Here’s a couple of samples of how the incident was reported in various media:
“Rafters Use Paddles to Beat Back Mountain Lion Attack…”; “A group of rafters in Arizona had to use their paddles in a fight for their lives against a mountain lion…”
Many of the articles then turned to warnings about rabies, with reminders to vaccinate pets, etc., but some did go on to list recommendations on what to do if faced with a mountain lion, which seems like a good thing to consider just now:
Glancing through the list above, it’s pretty obvious that mistakes were made by key members of the rafting party, likely worsening an already fraught situation by advancing on the big cat, then bending down and presenting head and shoulders as an inviting target. according to the most complete accounts of the incident, eventually the big cat left camp under an onslaught of 10 raft paddle-wielding humans, and the cat-inflicted wounds were not serious, and hunters with dogs were trying to track and kill the cat. I’ll finish this post with a story involving another rafter in a camp just upriver, a day or so before this unfortunate incident — but first, let’s consider some key similarities and differences in the predator/prey scenarios of this post and last week’s Talking Bears.
As noted last post, Black Bears are omnivores, mostly driven by an imperative to consume calories to prepare for, and then to recover from, seasonal periods of torpor. Learning to avoid confrontations with bears usually involves removing food attractants, and not getting between mothers and cubs, or crawling into dens with sleepy bears. Most felines, from fluffy tabby cats to African lions, are essentially carnivores looking for their next kill, at least until humans domesticate and train some of them to accept concoctions of canned and kibble tasty bits. Wild felines live by stealth, with short runs to pounce on prey. A successful wildcat stashes kills to revisit when hungry, while a bear aims to store nutrients as fat layers.
Though known throughout the Inter-mountain West as a mountain lion, Puma concolor, the species is not closely related to the lions (Panthera leo) of Africa and India. It has around 40 regionally common aliases (cougar, puma, catamount, panther, etc.). Most names originated from indigenous North and South American languages, with various spellings and pronunciations steered by European language influences. Though once classified as having 32 sub-species, genetic testing has recently narrowed that to just two, Puma concolor concolor in South America and Puma concolor cougar in North America, with some lineages mixing through Central America. On both continents, the big cats were in the top tier of predators for many centuries, with adults having little to fear from other predators, until humans’ technologies and trading habits created a new class of danger, the human super-predator.
Most carnivorous and omnivorous predators kill for food, in competition over mating or territory, or when feeling threatened. This tends to allow a stability of prey populations, as other animal species learn to avoid dangerous areas and situations, adjust feeding habits, or evolve to seasonally out-breed the predators’ appetites, a process known as a trophic cascade that can also reshape and then stabilize a habitat that supports prey and predator alike. Challenging and/or destroying this long-tested model, the human super-predator kills for food, competition, sport, entertainment, convenience, and commerce. When prey species change habits and/or locations, the super-predator follows, changing tactics and inventing technologies that eventually decimate prey populations. As humans have colonized continents and islands around the world since a population collapse about 74,000 years ago (which reduced human numbers to as few as 10,000 adults by some estimates), extinction or decimation of large predators and prey has been a side effect. In recent centuries, habitat fragmentation and destruction, along with engineered production, extraction and agriculture — all forms of super predation — have far surpassed hunting/harvesting for food or sport as prime causes of what has become known as the Sixth Mass Extinction, which has spread the species losses among vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. A recent study estimates that between 7.5 and 13% of the approximately 2 million known species on Earth are already extinct.
In acknowledgement of this effect, innumerable conservation and re-introduction schemes for threatened and endangered species are now employed by human societies around the world, though with varying levels of commitment and prospects for long-term success. Most of these efforts are opposed or exploited by powerful interests eyeing resources ‘locked up’ for other species use, or vying for control of the process by casting themselves as the rightful ‘stewards’ of the habitat. More on this subject is coming in a future post, but for now I’ll finish with another story I came across while cruising through Mountain Buzz. As with all good river tales, there is plenty of drama and bit of ribald humor in this one (some of which I’ll leave to those among you willing to click the provided link), but please consider that there are several ways to live and pass among other life forms on a river, and throughout each of our lives.
Under the title Salt Lions, Mountain Buzz user “wsmckinney” posted:
“On March 15th, 2023 I was posted up at an unmarked camp, river left, mile 38 on the Glen Rink guide, just above Black Rock rapid on the Salt river. At roughly 6pm a mountain lion entered my camp and approached me: I flexed, got big, and screamed the most vulgar things you have ever heard, guaranteed. The lion was unfazed and we began circling one other around my tent. The lion proceeded to bite and choke my chair, then pounced on my tent thrashing and pissing all over it. This allowed me enough time to finally reach a rock I could pick up which I Dan Marino'd off the wall and sent the lion running.”
There is more to read by following the link, including several jokes of varying quality from the peanut gallery of other commenters, but note that in this case the human did not abdicate his role of top predator, the big cat finally had enough of the fray, and that there were no photo/videographers present. There is a lesson in this, and another in this statement from wsmckinney, “I wish no harm to the lion that wanted to kill me. It was the most beautiful animal I have ever seen in person and they appeared in perfect condition. I would have done the same thing as the lion if I came home and someone was posted up on my couch. So basically, long live the lions.”
Up next, a look at North America’s most abundant large prey species, in Deer Tails: On Navigating an Ecosystem of Fear, Part 3 — until then, let’s help each other enjoy this beautiful planet we all live on. - B.
Here’s a study on Factors governing risk of cougar attacks on humans, from the US Geological Survey.
More on the diversity and range of Puma concolor sp. in North and South America, as well as population status and trends, from the IUCN Red List.
A recent study published in Landscape Ecology documents positive ecosystem effects of decaying prey species carcasses, with an emphasis on the effects of kills cached by mountain lions in the Yellowstone ecosystem. The full article is behind a paywall, but here’s an informative synopsis.