The cat dialed back pressure through its crushing jaws, and the friend was able to pull away, fellow cyclists said in an interview one month after the incident east of Seattle.
A group of Seattle-area cyclists who helped one of their own escape the jaws of a cougar recounted their story this weekend, saying they fought the cat and pinned it down.
The woman who was attacked, Keri Bergere, sustained neck and face injuries and was treated at a hospital and released following the Feb. 17 incident on a trail northeast of Fall City, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement.
Bergere said she spent five days at an area hospital and was still recovering.
Fish and Wildlife Lt. Erik Olson called the actions of her fellow cyclists “heroic” in the statement. But the extent of the cyclists’ battle with the 75-pound cat wasn’t immediately clear then.
I was stalked by a cougar once while walking my dog. It was evening and we were on our regular walking trail with a headlamp and flashlight.
Then I see a pair of eyes reflecting back at me about 20m into the trees, just staring straight at us.
My dog is clueless because he’s just sniffing at bushes to pee on.
Immediately I start walking backwards, never taking the flashlight off the eyes, and they start following us all the way back to our property completely silent until they eventually disappear once we get to the lit up pathway. Luckily we were only about 400m into our walk.
Looks more like two bobcats than 1 cougar.
The one with eyes has huge ears, and I think the other ones eyes are just blocked. But it looks like ears and the flank of a bobcat. Just a little in front of the obvious one behind that stump.
They wouldn’t be following for you if they were bobcats tho, maybe if your dog is under 25lbs. Or maybe it’s a breeding pair and they want to know why a human and dog are walking around their den at night
I dunno, maybe that is a cougar tho. Where I grew up authorities spent decades saying we just had bobcats and no cougars. It wasn’t till someone shot one that was prowling around a barn till they admitted we had a cougar population and they didn’t seem afraid of humans.
They havent gotten anyone yet.