Every once in a while, you read a piece in the news and think, “Wow. That guy’s telling my story.” This happened to me just now when I read about the fella who took on a cougar in the woods and won.
Travis Kauffman encountered the animal when it attacked him on a Colorado jogging trail last week. Bad decision on the big cat’s part as Travis killed it by stepping on its throat. I was amazed as I read because that is exactly what I would have done if I had encountered a cougar in Colorado. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
I don’t get freaked out around large animals and, in fact, sort of welcome the challenge they present.
Poor Travis did end up with lacerations on his neck and face out of the three-minute encounter. I’m thinking I would probably have avoided any injuries. With a face like mine, it would be a shame to see any lacerations on it.
Our boy Travis said he was running along the trail near Denver, when he heard pine needles rustling and turned his head only to come face-to-face with a young cougar.
“I was bummed out to see a mountain lion,” he said. He raised his arms and shouted at the cougar, but it pounced and locked its jaw on his right wrist and clawed at his face. His attempts to halt the attack by stabbing the predator with sticks and hitting it on the head with a rock were to no avail. I might have stabbed it with my car keys and bonked it on the noggin with my cellphone.
Ultimately, our young hero was able to pin the cougar down and put his foot on its neck and choke it until it stopped thrashing. He worried during the struggle that another cougar would come along and join the tussle. I wouldn’t have worried about something like that because another cougar would have run away after it witnessed my ferocity.
At only 155 pounds, Travis Kauffman has no special martial arts training. He just acted on instinct. Again, that is where we differ. I am fully locked and loaded and I don’t even carry a gun.
Mountain lion attacks on humans are actually kind of common in Colorado and it is by sheer coincidence that I do not live in Colorado.
If you are sensitive, you might not want to read this next part.
The other night, at midnight, I was out in my dark backyard when I saw something emerge from behind the shed at the back of the lot. It started moving through the snow towards the house so I stepped back into the garage and closed the door, watching from the window.
“What the heck is that?” I wondered, as I prepared to yell and wake up the household to help if things got too intense.
Cautiously, the animal crept closer to our bird feeder, preparing to eat some of the seed the birds had kicked out onto the snow. I turned the light off in the garage so the thing couldn’t see me and kept watching through the window. Turned out it was one of the biggest rabbits I’ve ever seen. But I wasn’t afraid.
I knew I could take it.
©2019 Jim Hagarty
