I was on a trail today that had a bunch of warning signs about cougars. Normally this trail has bears, sometimes deer, not big cats. Me being me, the signs didn’t deter me and I kept going, but the signs did get me wondering…
When on trails that are prone to bears it is recommended to wear a bear bell, or make some sort of noise, because bears will hear the sound and be all “nah, don’t wanna deal with that nonsense today” and avoid us interloping humans.
What about cougars though?
If you have ever been in the house of someone who lives with a cat you’ll know a lot of cat toys have bells, or some sort of mechanism to create noise, so the cat gets interested and plays.
If I were to wear a bear bell and a cougar was nearby would that bell be making me bait? Can’t you just imagine a cougar minding it’s own business then all of a sudden hearing a bell and getting curious? They follow the sound of the bell only to find a human on a trail, a moving human, making sound, like oh say, a cat toy?
By wearing bear bells are we making ourselves in to cat toys for cougars?
Just a thought I am pondering this evening as I am held hostage by the small sleeping floof I live with; I want a drink but he’s sleeping on my foot, guess which one of us is getting what they want? Hint: not me.
I’m not saying mountain lions and cougars are the same, but cats are gonna cat, no?
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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