Women pinned cougar during 'hand-to-hand combat' to save friend trapped in its jaws - eviltoast

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.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Yes, killing an animal because it attacked a human is exactly the same as killing everything to clear the land.

    You can look up where the attack happened. It happened on a marked trail outside a city, about 30 miles from Seattle. Not exactly the middle of nowhere.
    Or are you saying that you shouldn’t take children outside of major metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest?

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      30 miles from a city can go from suburbs to wilderness quickly out there. And yes killing a near threatened species because you want to go hiking in a safety bubble is exactly what you’re advocating.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        No, killing a specific animal that attacked a human is what I’m fine with.

        Don’t be an asshole and tell people what they believe without having the decency to even get it right.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Again, the more we encroach into their territory (which we already heavily have) the more the attacks will increase…so yes you are fine with killing them so you can feel safe while taking a day hike. The problem here is you’re not able to understand what you are saying, you’re only able to think to step 1 of the process and not actually look at the long term of it.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            No, the problem here is that you’re unable to not argue against what you want to argue against, even when that’s not what’s being said.

            Guess what dumbass? You can be fine with saying we shouldn’t encroach on their territory, and should scale back how much humans are actively in wild spaces for conservation reasons, and also think that animals that attack humans pose a threat and are justifiably killed.

            No matter how hard you try to make responsive killing the same as preemptive killing, they’re different and you just sound deluded.

            • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              No we got where we are with wolves and other predators by continually pushing into their territory and killing them because they attacked a human or livestock. We didn’t actively hunt them like the NA bison. So yes you lot are a bunch of ignorant fucks, who look at the outdoors like it’s your personal playground and it needs to have bubble safety nets for you.

              https://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Gray-Wolf-Populations-in-the-US.pdf

              North American wolf numbers plummeted in the 1800’s and early 1900’s due to decreased availability of prey, habitat loss and in-creased extermination efforts to reduce predation on livestock and game animals.

              • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                8 months ago

                I really like how you live such an unnuanced life, where it’s impossible to simultaneously believe “we should leave nature alone as a first line of defense” and also “this cougar just tried to eat someone, it’ll probably try again”.
                Obviously someone who believes it’s a good idea to shoot a cougar while it’s human victim lays bleeding a few feet away has exactly the same feelings about a good old fashioned 1800s preemptive wolf cull.

                Seriously, reread your own fucking source again. We culled wolves preemptively, not one wolf at a time after an attack. Are you dense?

                But go ahead, keep fighting your straw man.

                Given you think we shouldn’t be in nature, I take it you live in a major metropolitan area and never leave?

                • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  They expanded, and killed as they expanded… exactly what we’re doing right now. Stop being a dense fuck. I also work with large animals and own a rescue farm, so no I don’t exist in some tiny fucking bubble like the lot of you children do.

                  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                    8 months ago

                    I’m not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse, because I can’t actually believe that someone can go this long without actually seeing a difference between proactive and reactive.

                    You’re talking like I’m saying “let’s clear out the woods from these pesky predators”, when what I’m talking about being acceptable is about one per year. (There have been 127 cougar attacks in the last century)

                    I also find the level of anger you have weird, given that you seem to be actively engaged in demolishing and intruding on the wild spaces you seem to want everyone else to keep out of.