Man Narrowly Escapes Tense Encounter With Wild Cougar In Nerve-Racking Video

Other than the time I almost stepped on a sleeping rattlesnake, I can't recall a time when I had a particularly dangerous encounter with a wild animal.

For that reason, if you asked me to guess how it feels when one is angry at you, I would probably guess that it's an abrupt, fight-or-flight affair that ends quickly with either an attack or the creature running away.

And while there likely have been encounters that went down that way, one Utah man has shown with his riveting video how easily something like that can scare and exhaust you all at once.

If you made a list of things that Kyle Burgess of Orem, Utah loves more than the outdoors, it would probably be a short one.

As he shared with Buzzfeed News, there are some scenic mountains near his home and Burgess often goes on trail runs among them.

During one of these runs, Burgess came across some little animals that he stopped to photograph.

As he said, "I didn’t know exactly what they were; I’m not an animal expert. I’d seen bobcats before on the trail, and I thought they were bobcats."

However, he then learned that he was mistaken in the worst way possible soon after he took his phone out.

As Burgess told Buzzfeed News, "After I took the first couple of steps, that’s when the mama saw me. And I realized these are not bobcats; these are baby cougars. And mama did not like that."

Although Burgess quickly started backing up, the cougar was intent on following him.

As he said, "I was the one who was obviously in the wrong because I was close to her baby cubs. I had to get away from those cubs, so that’s why I started backing up as much as I could."

But it seemed that no matter how far away he backed up, Burgess couldn't get the animal to lose interest in him.

And so the cougar stalked him for almost six minutes while Burgess made noises and tried to present himself as big and scary.

In a few instances, the cougar breaks its stride and lurches forward with its front paws outstretched and its mouth growling.

All the while, Burgess kept backing up and trying to divert it back to its children in between frightened expletives.

Finally, Burgess was able to seize an opportunity to crouch down and throw a rock, which sent the cougar off running.

Although the experience was tense and prolonged, Scott Root with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources credited Burgess for how he handled himself as it was going on.

As he said, "From what I can tell, he wasn’t trying to get too close or anything. It was too late. So he started backing up, which you want to do. He stayed tall, stayed big, and made a lot of noise, and that is what I was proud to see."

And although Burgess was clearly scared and frustrated in the full video, he didn't let either of those feelings get the better of him.

It's worth noting that while Burgess uses a lot of expletives in this clip, they will not be heard because he censored the footage.

In addition to showing the proper response to a cougar encounter in action, the video also goes a long way to show how long six minutes in a situation that tense can really feel.

h/t: Buzzfeed News

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