Mountain Lion Attack Stopped: Split Second Deployment, Deadly Accuracy not Required

• The video shows an AGGRESSIVE MOUNTAIN LION “prey-testing,”  an elk hunter, a predator behavior similar to bears.
• The hunter SUCCESSFULLY FENDS OFF the mountain lion’s charge with a .40 caliber Glock pistol.
• Split-second deployment & deadly accuracy when using firearms against predators is NOT always needed to save lives.

U.S.A. — The video shows a mountain lion attack on an elk hunter in Idaho. If first appeared on the Internet in the fall of 2022. The hunter has Glock, proclaimed to be a Glock 27.  The big cat starts to charge the hunter-turned-prey at about 20 seconds in. Just as the cat starts to pounce, the hunter fires his .40 caliber pistol, and the cat abruptly stops the charge and retreats. The mountain lion is persistent and hesitates to leave, but another shot from the Glock makes up its mind.

The cat retreats slowly as if indifferent to the threat.

The video indicates a “prey-testing” behavior similar to that seen in bears.  Predators cannot survive for long if they choose prey which has a good chance of severely injuring the predator. Predators tend to “test” unfamiliar prey. If the predator does not “test” the prey, and is severely wounded or killed, the predator will not pass along its genetics. Therefore “testing” of unfamiliar prey is highly selective.

Humans are unfamiliar prey. The “testing” of unfamiliar prey is commonly observed with black bears. Dr. Stephen Herrero wrote this about predatory black bears:

By contrast, “the kind of bear you need to be afraid of is not feeling threatened by you — it’s testing you out as a possible prey item,” said Dr. Herrero, a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary. “It’s quiet. It stalks you just like a lion might stalk you.” With a mother defending cubs, “you just back away calmly and give it some space,” Dr. Herrero said. “With a predatory bear, you stand your ground, stomp at it, throw rocks at it, whatever you need to do to convince it you’re not easy prey.”

Dr. Herrero’s words mention lions. It is unclear whether he refers to the American mountain lion or the African lion. The description seems appropriate to the actions seen in the video. What is clear is the human with the Glock pistol had plenty of time to access the pistol. When he fired it, he did not need deadly accuracy. Such interactions probably happen often with mountain lions and hundreds of times more commonly with black bears. When neither animal nor human is hurt, there is no news story, merely a campfire tale told to friends. Very few of these interactions are recorded on video because video equipment used to be expensive. With the ubiquity of modern cell phones, video recordings are starting to be seen. In the 2012 paper by Herrero and Smith, Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence, a claim about the use of firearms was made. From Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska, bold added:

The need for split-second deployment and deadly accuracy make using firearms difficult, even for experts. 

Data that I have on the use of handguns to defend against bears does not support the claim in the Herrero and Smith paper. Of 170 incidents where handguns were fired in defense against bears, at most, 16 appear to have needed a response in under two or three seconds and deadly accuracy.  Many times people had many seconds or minutes to deploy a handgun. In 106 incidents, the bear was killed. Many times when it was killed, it died after leaving the scene of the attack. In about ten percent of the incidents, warning shots were sufficient to stop the attack.

There is sufficient time to deploy a defensive arm in most bear-human conflicts. Where injuries occur are the unusual times when warnings are not heeded, time is insufficient to deploy a defensive arm, or a person is not willing to deploy the defensive arm. There are very few mountain lion attacks recorded. However, this writer cannot recall a mountain lion attack which was successful when the victim was armed with a firearm.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.