Fear of Mountain Lions

This post came out a few years ago exploring anxiety and big, wild cats. At that point, there had been no deaths this century from mountain lions in Colorado where I live. New Year’s Day this year that statistic changed when a woman was attacked while alone on a hiking trail not far from the town of Estes Park. Forensics pointed to asphyxiation, meaning the lion had her throat in its jaws and closed off her airway. Statistically, one should worry far more about cows than mountain lions. Annually, domestic cows in the US kill ten to twenty people — trampled, gored, or by vehicle collisions — while around thirty human deaths have been recorded from mountain lions since widescale recording began in the 1880s. Chances of being killed by a cat in the Americas is negligible, but clearly it’s not zero. Is it worth freaking out? My wife pieced together a kill in our driveway, sending me pictures of deer tracks posed in a casual walk followed by a sprawl, deer fur in the snow, and faint signs…