Stalked by a Mountain Lion: Fear, Fact, And The Uncertain Future Of Cougars In America - Paperback

by Jo Deurbrouck (Author)

In the 1990s, three times as many people were attacked my mountain lions as had been attacked in the previous century. These shy predators must kill to survive, and in areas where their habitats are shrinking, human-cat encounters are on the rise. Stalked by a Mountain Lion tells the stories of attacks and strange encounters between cougars and people and offers a sensitive look at the often complex issues surrounding their interactions.

Back Jacket

DEADLY COUGAR ENCOUNTERSA mountain lion gives birth under a porch in Boulder, Colorado. Another saunters into the parking garage of a swank hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. In the hills outside Sacramento, the remains of a jogger are found buried in a shallow grave, the story of her violent death told in a confusion of animal tracks and a blood-stained sun visor. A child is snatched on his way to school, his attacker a shadow in the alders, a fixed yellow stare crouching over the boy's torn face. Where western wilderness unravels into suburbia, at the intersection of a recovering species and a human population hungry for space, the common wisdom that cougars prefer to avoid people has given way to a harsher reality: Mountain lions move in the shadows of our homes, and a few of them hunt there. In this gripping look at the myths and realities of cougar and human interactions, Jo Deurbrouck takes us from the fieldwork of researchers to the near misses of those who faced down these predators and to those rare, horrifying moments when everything went wrong.

Author Biography

Jo Deurbrock writes about adventure, sports, travel, and nature for magazines and newspapers. She lives with her husband and two dogs in rural Idaho.