Stop or back away slowly, if you can do it safely. Move slowly and never turn your back on it. Most mountain lions will try to avoid confrontation. Do not approach a lion, especially one that is feeding or with kittens. (MORE: Idaho woman breaking up dog fight realizes one combatant is a juvenile mountain lion) What to do if you encounter a mountain lion, according to the Colorado Division of Wildlife Williams described the risk of being attacked by cougars as "extremely low." In the past 100 years, there have been fewer than 20 human fatalities as a result of cougar attacks, Cullens said. In addition, California, which does not permit sport hunting of cougars at all, has the lowest incidents per capita of human-cougar conflict, Wielgus said.Įven still, attacks by mountain lions are still incredibly rare, according to the experts. "So, basically, what we found was that increased hunting was causing the problems, and decreased hunting solved the problem," Wielgus said. For example, in Washington, where researchers learned that the mountain lion population was increasing by 14%, hunting has been regulated to just 14%, Wielgus said. The trick is to keep the equilibrium of hunting to population growth. On the flip side, Wielgus found that decreased hunting resulted in decreased immigration and fewer complaints, he said. Juvenile cougars were also responsible for the attacks that garnered national attention in recent months. The juvenile lions are often the ones wreaking havoc in human communities, attacking pets and livestock, he added. Younger cats haven't learned how to hunt as proficiently as their adult counterparts, leading them to make mistakes and sometimes mistake a human for food, Williams said. "These young cougars were responsible for increased complaints." "For every large resident male killed, two or three young guys came to the funeral," he told ABC News. Robert Wielgus, former director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Lab at Washington State University, found through 20 years of research that increased hunting for cougars resulted in increased immigration by young cougars, most of them teenage males. "It’s a beautiful place to live, but now you have to live with the mountain lions," he added.ĭr. The increase of residential sprawl across states in the American west like Colorado, California and Idaho, has put people "right smack dab in the middle of mountain lion habitat," Williams said. And as they move into mountainous and hillside areas, and build properties in areas that had previously been wildland, they've understandably encountered more wildlife, including cougars, she said. Human populations continue to creep up "dramatically" as well, making encounters with big cats even more likely, according to Lynn Cullens, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation. In addition, deer and elk herd typically congregate in south and west-facing mountain slopes in the winter - areas where humans like to build homes as well due to the low elevations - and the cougars follow their food, Hayden said. (MORE: Hiker found dead on Mount Hood was likely killed by cougar: Officials) Humans and cougars gravitate toward similar habitatsĪs their population thrives, mountain lions are expanding their range and "moving into areas that people aren't used to seeing mountain lions," Hayden said.
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