Viral Video of Mama Cougar Chasing Away Utah Hiker

This video is going crazy viral and for good reason. It shows a pretty terrifying hiking experience. According to the hiker 26 year old Kyle Burgess, he was jogging along the Utah trail when he came across a couple of cougar cubs. Probably equally as startled the mama cougar made it very, very clear that she wanted him far away from her babies. So far in fact that she 'chased him off' for a good six minutes.

Warning this video contains A LOT of bleeped profanity.

Many people are saying that the cougar 'stalked' the hiker. According to experts who reported to Idaho Statesman, that is not the behavior being displayed. The mama simply wanted to cubs safe and wanted the hiker, who she clearly saw as a potential threat far, far away from her little ones. Not that this will make you feel much better but when cougars are hunting for food of any kind they do a quiet stalking, they don't strike and punch and chase you away. While the Mama cougar in the video is being clearly very threatening, and even doing some so called 'strikes' toward the hiker. She never makes contact with him and she is continuously moving him further and further away. Once she realized how far she had pushed him and herself form her babies, she heads the other direction to get back to them.

Have you ever had a cougar encounter? I had one with my pups down in Klamath Falls Oregon about 10 years ago. I was taking the pups for a walk in a big open nature area, they were off leash and happily exploring nearby when I saw, from far away what I thought at first was a large golden retriever or something on a hill all the sudden it started at a dead bolt towards us, that is when by the way it was running I could tell what it was. I ran so hard and so fast with my dogs to get us all back to safety that I actually threw up from running so hard. I called wildlife fish and game and there had been other reports of a relatively aggressive mama cougar in the area with not new cubs but an adolescent (teen-ish) cub who she was teaching to hunt. That was the last time I took my dogs there to explore off leash. While it didn't catch up to us before we got to the car, that was just over a decade ago and still freaks me out to think about. I totally get why this hiker was so incredibly startled, anyone would be. In this Utah case, that mama was just protecting her cubs, something any mama would do.