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.
That article said 1) they are out hunting. Not that they are hunting humans, but I’m pretty sure you read it as such. And 2) “testing you out as a possible prey item,” said Dr. Herrero, a professor emeritus at the Univ". Testing mf testing. By bears in deep country that don’t have much experience with humans. They do not default think that you are prey. I’ve had bears size me and you can just see their mind is ‘what are you, hey you’re not prey’ before wandering off.
Anyway what I wanted to convey is that normal behavior (which is the vast vast majority of behavior) these animals do not see humans as prey. But yes in the very, very rare occasions they attack humans, a portion of that can be something went wrong in their brain or in the situation and they may have seen you as prey. This is extraordinarily rare, as you can see by the rareness of attacks to even begin with. But people want to read that as normal behavior is hunting humans as prey, which it’s not. It’s the edge case. There’s a huge difference which I hope you now see.