bogydave

dalenjune

Wow! Sad news, RIP.

General Geoff

Usually cougars don't attack humans unless they're really desperate, like when they're getting too old and feeble to catch other big animals. I guess it got a pretty exotic last meal.

spdntrxi

if your average house cat was bigger... we'd all be on the menu.

mcours2006

That's horrible! Prayers and thoughts to the man's family.

Does the cougar need to be euthanized in this instance? I mean, they are wild animals living in the wild, not pets.

02Giant 

It attacked and killed a person. It will be euthanized.

indyfabz

When a predator kills a human in cases where it seems the animal was engaging in predatory behavior it is usually killed, not euthanized. (Euthanasia is ending life to alleviate suffering.) Take the case of Lance Crosby, who was attacked, killed, partially consumed and cached while hiking in Yellowstone a few years ago. The mother, along with her cubs, were killed.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ul-wenk-blaze/

Tragic story that is shrouded in some mystery since no on has been able to determine why he was where he was. I met Crosby once. His ex was a student of mine when I was a research and writing TA in law school. We still keep in touch and even had dinner five years ago before I started a tour from Pittsburgh.

There was a different result in the case of the U.S.F.S. policeman who was killed by a grizzly while mountain biking just outside of Glacier National Park a few years ago. He was bombing a descent with a relative a ways back. It was determined that he came around a curve doing more than 20 mph and hit the bear, which was on the trail. The bear then attacked in an act of defense, not predation. As such, the bear was not hunted. By the time his riding partner came n the scene, the bear was mauling. There was nothing he could do.

Somewhere on line you can find the official reports of the investigations into both deaths.

indyfabz

It was killed, not euthanized. There is no indication that the animal was suffering.

"Police later confirmed that the cougar was found and 'euthanized.'"

gettingold

Read the comments following the article. A small slice of everything that is wrong in the world right now. Idiots.

Wileyrat

Sad, but I'm not surprised. I lived in Washington most of my life, and spent a lot of time in the mtns around North Bend. While I've never seen cougar or bear in the wild, I've seen the tracks and scat showing they are there.

​​​​​​I always knew I wasn't at the top of the food chain when I was in the woods.

Milton Keynes

I've heard it said that when someone dies in their house and isn't discovered for a while, a dog will wait a week before eating the body. A cat will wait maybe a day.

joesch

Yes sad and scarry since Snoqualmie is a popular area close to Seattle where many go to hike, bike and enjoy the falls. It was reported as a "remote gravel road above Snoqualmie, WA"

trailangel

Unusual that the cat attacked 2 people at the same time. I don't think carrying a weapon/pistol would have helped.... the attack is so fast. We've had a couple down here in SO CAL... usually joggers and female.
Euthanized is the PC word for "they shot it"

bikemig 

Cars (and the humans who drive them especially when they're on their phones) are much more dangerous to cyclists than cougars or bears for that matter but we're more likely to fear an animal attack than an automobile accident.

indyfabz

Yeah. I saw two bears during my week long tour across PA last year. The second was from a distance. The first encounter was when I was leaving a campground just before dawn. The beast and I stared at each other from a distance of about 25'. The thing was YUUUGE. I put him at 500 lbs. conservatively. (PA bears can get big. Record in a legal hunt is over 800 lbs.) After checking each other out for about 20 seconds, he went on his way. Cars gave me more trouble on the trip.

spinnaker

Oh brother.


You should have applied to care for the animal. If you have kids then let the cougar play with your kid in a rehab program.

mcours2006

Really?? I simply posed a question and you interpret that to mean that I want to care for the cougar? Boy, oh boy, and then imply that I should let the cougar play with my kids? This is the stupidest thing I've seen written here in a long time, and there've been many, many stupid things written here lately.

Get a clue, pal!

fietsbob

a moving prey was an invitation, they were riding in the deep woods not in the WSU campus ..

Washington state university sports mascot is: Butch T Cougar

spinnaker

The the cougar killed a human and you are wondering why it should not be put down so it does not surprise me that you don't recognize sarcasm when you see it.

Cyclist0108

It's international news now: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...shington-state

Two helpful observations:

(1) Poor thing must have been half-starved.

(2) Compass Snoqualmie tires are now gonna get even more expensive.

mcours2006

Ah, yes, sarcasm. Indeed a very low form of humour, often gets lost in print, I daresay. Thanks for pointing that out. Hardy, har har! (See what I did there?)

It's quite tragic what happened. I'm not trying to be insensitive and I'm not saying the cougar shouldn't have been put down, but if we take the same line of logic, if the cyclist had fallen off a cliff, knowing full well that there are deathtrap falls in the forest, would we bulldoze the cliff, or fill in the gorge so that the trail is more safe?

Cyclist0108

I don't advocate putting the cougar down. However, this is a false equivalence. The cliff does not go hunting.

Rhetorical question: Which is worse? Dying slowly every day on the couch watching TV, or getting slowly mauled to death by a mountain lion with atrocious dental hygiene?

General Geoff

There would probably be a fence or guard rail up within a few months if that happened.

mcours2006

As far as we know, neither did the cougar. The cyclist came into the cougar's realm. It's not the same as a cougar wandering into a residential neighbourhood and stalking little children. The wild, after all, is the wild.

Cyclist0108

We have them wandering through the neighborhood constantly. People don't just drop dead because they share the territory.