Talk:List of fatal cougar attacks in North America

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Video Talk:List of fatal cougar attacks in North America

Unknown Victim

Surely, for various reasons, an unknown number of unknown victims have been attacked, killed and eaten by predatory BIG cats since humans first began scampering acround the fruited plains and majestic purple mountains of the North American continent.

I know of no monument to these unknown folks. Nothing akin to the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetary.

Kinda' sad, in a way, for those who died by the fangs and claws of a killer kitty to be forgotten... ultimately being a mere burp after a cougar's dinner (or breakfast or lunch, snack, whatever).

Perhaps Wiki should offer an on-line memorial for those unknown vicitms.24.206.248.102 (talk) 19:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Maps Talk:List of fatal cougar attacks in North America

Completeness

The article states that the list is not complete; however, the cougar fund website states that there have been 20 people killed in attacks since 1890. Including the people who died of rabies our list has 23 people.

It may be usefull to consider expanding this to all atacks. I was looking for trends, and including attacks would supply more data to draw conclusions. 98.232.176.231 (talk) 07:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

• I removed 3 of them. There is no evidence suggesting that were killed by a big cat. Only assumption. There was one about a boy, that the police found clothing a couople of years later, but no sign of attack by cat. Tragic as it is, the father still wants to believe hestill alive. The other two had less evidence so were removed for lack of source (one was a "dead link" and another assumption) no evidence or other reports that i can find anyway. Good site that keeps track of this type of thing including and mostly non fatal attacks http://www.cougarinfo.org/attackex.htm -John in CinciIP --Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.23.189 (talk) 22:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Nice work! --CutOffTies (talk) 01:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there might be more, not less, victims that belong in the list. Here are some that were mentioned in the "outdoorlife2007" reference:

• August or Sept 1998: "six-year-old Dante Swallow was mauled at a day camp outside Missoula." Technically, the article doesn't clearly state "cougar", but that's the only subject it's supposed to talk about;
• "January 2000: Clarence Hall, an animal-control hunter for the Canadian government, was mauled severely by a cougar he'd been ordered to dispatch in the backyard of a home on the Nuxalk Indian Reserve in British Columbia." This does need however corroboration if the mauling was fatal or not. (He wasn't, heard him on the radio afterwards 184.66.15.112 (talk) 02:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC))
• "the death of an eight-year-old girl back in 1979, [...] The cougar still had fresh remains from a deer kill in its stomach. It just licked up the girl's blood, left her lying in the d[irt]"

I would've included these myself, but i thought i should discuss first. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 07:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Vulernability of children

The article implies that children are especially vulnerable and that children make up the vast majority of the victims. While seemingly logical, the list of victims doesn't support "vast majority". The ambiguous wording of the article may mean that the vast majority of attacks including non-fatal ones are children, or the incompleteness of the list may be involved. But without a citation I think this is a suspect assertion. Paulc206 (talk) 08:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

This is because the webcomic XKCD made a joke about this very webpage, implying kids were the vast majority of cougar victims. In other words, this page has been vandalized. Lots42 (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe not. Either way, when XKCD jokes about a Wikipedia page, some people go nuts about it. Lots42 (talk) 20:33, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I find that the whole page is something of a joke, most of the claimed cougar attacks claimed in the article are not confirmed cougar attacks. Look at the one that was added this past week, a hiker's remains were found having been eaten by animals including a possible mountain lion, and yet someone added that as a claimed cougar attack to the article.

The list of claimed cougar attacks are overwhelmingly unverified, yet the latest one that was addeed was obviously lacking any hint of any cougar attack. Damotclese (talk) 02:26, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

src: cdn.outdoorhub.com

XKCD reference

Appeared in today's XKCD. May want to keep an eye on this page. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.53.110.198 (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

src: www.planetdeadly.com

That Spoofed/Fake Incident

Thanks for removing that unverified, fake alleged incident. One of the things I've been seeing out in the real world are systematic efforts to make people think that mountain lion attacks and bear attacks are "on the rise" and far more common than gets reported by the supposed "liberal" media, the reasoning (so it goes on Facebook) is that not reporting attacks "which happen every day" is a conspiracy.

Eventually we might expect to see a serious effort to fill this Wikipedia entry with numerous claimed incidents, none of which will be backed with legitimate references. There seems to be a desire to pretend the threat is far more widespread and serious than it actually is, usually spread across "conservative" Facebook groups and pages. Damotclese (talk) 17:02, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

src: kimcampion.com

Unverified claims -- Jaryd Atadero, 3, male

The entry just added about "Jaryd Atadero, 3, male" was not confirmed to be a cougar attack, the fact that animals eat human remains and claw open hikers' clothing is not indicative of a mountain lion attack. It indicates that human remains were eaten by animals, the references suggesting one of them was a mountain lion.

Since this was not an attack, the entry will be reversed after discussion unless suitable references are provided which confirm it as a mountain lion attack. Damotclese (talk) 02:23, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure who posted this, but I want to thank you because there is no evidence Jaryd was taken by a cougar. In fact, The Colorado Bureau of Investigation found no mountain lion hairs or blood on Jaryd's clothing. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.98.2.54 (talk) 19:31, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Not a problem, in fact a number of the proposed incidents lack evidence to support their inclusion in the list. That one was easy to "debunk" however the text was changed to reflect possible mountain lion attacks ratherthan the previous stronger-worded it was a mountain lion attack.

One of the issues that we face in North America is unfounded fears of hikers, bikers, backpackers, campers, climbers that mountain lion attacks are common and frequent, and the inclusion of proposed incidents which aren't supported by evidence is bad, however the inclusion of proposed incidents which were demonstrably not mountain lion attacks is twice bad. Damotclese (talk) 19:10, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

src: www.outsideonline.com

Laguna Beach Spree

Whoever cleaned up that "Laguna Beach Spree" nonsense, thank you. The claim was unreferenced, no citations, zero, it needed to be removed, thanks. Damotclese (talk) 18:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

src: www.gannett-cdn.com

Non-Referenced Increase In Numbers Killed

The editor that increased the number of people killed in North America from 20 to 70, would you please provide references or citations for that new number and re-submit your change, please? Thanks. Damotclese (talk) 16:31, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The Thomas Harris (26) case seems a little bit remarkable: "Killed by a two-year-old male cougar near Gold River on British Columbia's Vancouver Island. He was dragged over 800 yards (730 m) in the snow." Snow in July? According to the Gold River article, Gold River is situated 160 m above sea level.Pål Jensen (talk) 20:48, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Greetings, Pål Jensen, you are correct, that seems wrong according to reviews of Climate / Weather, Vancouver Island which shows:

From June through September, Vancouver Island is typically sunny and mild. Daytime temperatures in the southern region of the island (from Nanaimo to Victoria), range from the low-to-mid 20s ºC, with evenings cooling down to about 10º C.

So that appears to be wrong. I'll have to see if I can find more legitimate coverage of the fatality and see if there's better information. Damotclese (talk) 16:47, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, you are correct, that was vandalism, some idiot's idea of a joke. Thomas Harris was a politician who was not killed by a mountain lion. :) I will remove the table's entry. Thanks! Damotclese (talk) 17:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

src: www.arrkannrv.com

Bot or something corrupted it

Something corrupted the article, looks like it was an attempt to automate reformatting of the table or something. Hopefully I got the mess reverted and the article restored properly. Damotclese (talk) 15:38, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

src: cdn.vox-cdn.com

Jaryd Atadero was predation after death

Thank you, editor, for removing Jaryd Atadero from the table, I had been considering doing that since the findings were that the predation of the remains were performed after death resulting from a fall. Damotclese (talk) 16:42, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

src: www.planetdeadly.com

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Should this be added?

https://calcoastnews.com/2015/08/mountain-lion-chews-off-cayucos-mans-hand/ -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B048:E257:2C7D:F2D1:4E5A:D366 (talk) 14:32, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

No, the extant article is about fatalities, not injuries. Damotclese (talk) 17:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, the issue is fatalities caused by mountain lions, not about mountain lions that eat humans after they have died. The fatality here is not caused by mountain lions despite the fact that a mountain lion ate the man's hand. Damotclese (talk) 17:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

src: www.outdoorlife.com

Taxobox

I'm going to remove the taxobox again. People who want to learn about how cougars are classified will search for and find that information in the general article on cougars, where a taxobox is already present. Including an infobox covering the parent topic on a subsidiary list article is a highly unusual practice. I don't see taxoboxes used in any of the other articles on animal attacks included in Template:Animal bites and stings. How is the taxobox a significant element of this list? Plantdrew (talk) 03:36, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

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Same case of Murder?

if you look up [5] and [6] it seems that both newspaper articles use the same words but different age for the boy. Something weird is going on there. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.190.183.229 (talk) 22:49, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Papers make mistakes, no reason think anything of it.?Trekker (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

src: www.planetdeadly.com

gender?

I just finished reading the shark attack page and saw no systematic reference to gender of the victims. Is there a reason this is relevant in this article? I'm willing to accept anything, including the fact that the reported incidents may lack substantive proof and the gender is simply meant to distinguish the (alleged?) victims. Like I said, it simply stood out because of the other attack page. Considering the age of victims, it seems unlikely this could have even a tenuous connection to female maturity that is sometimes theorized. Ukrpickaxe (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

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Concerns about the factual accuracy of this page

This concern is transcribed (with permission) from OTRS ticket # 2017112910013282.

I sincerely apologize for asking you to fix this subject, but email is literally the extent of my technical ability. I would ask you to delete the 5 deaths listed for California prior to 1994 because your data is being used to support arguments about mountain lions in this state and the alleged deaths are - in my opinion at least - bogus.

The June 19, 1890 alleged death has no source. I have researched everything I can think of, and there simply is no source. I realize it appears on almost all lists, but never with a source. My suspicion is it got on those lists by being on other lists, but where it started, who knows? I expect it is a created legend which someone wrote down once and everyone else copied.

The January 31, 1909 alleged death appeared in the Deseret News, a Utah newspaper, and no where else. The February 2, 1909 alleged death appeared in the Aspen Democrat, a Colorado paper, and no where else. I mean that literally, no where else, and specifically no where in California, 1000 miles away, where the events allegedly occurred. More damning, the two accounts are very nearly word for word identical except for the ages. Read them yourself. They are obviously from the same source. There is no possible way that both reports can be true, and the existence of these near - but not quite - identical reports leads one to the inevitable conclusion that BOTH are false. The most likely explanation I have is that someone in the area wanted to reduce the mountain lion population. What better way than to salt area newspapers with accounts of mountain lions slaughtering and eating children? And put the alleged event in California, so far away that no one will ever check. Then let the locals shoot every mountain lion they see.

The July 5, 1909 deaths I believe actually happened, but those two people died of rabies. Listing them as being killed by mountain lions is ridiculous. When someone dies after being bitten by a rabid bat, do we put then on the "killed by bats" list? Skunks? Foxes? Dogs? Of course not, they were killed by rabies. Leave these two on the list as being attacked by a mountain lion with the parenthetical note that since the animal carried rabies the people eventually died of the disease.

All of the above you can easily verify, and I have to trust you to correct the list. I again apologize that I can't do it myself.

Your input and feedback are requested. I will not be watching this page, so please ping me if there is any required follow-up or concerns. Primefac (talk) 16:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the poster. Local newspapers that are obviously stealing material from each other then fudging the facts, and which date to an era of low standards for fact-checking to begin with, are not good enough. Nor are newspapers that old considered secondary sources any longer; they're primary. What we should probably do is replace this with something like "From 1890 to 1909, five alleged deaths (two from rabies) were reported in small, local newspapers, but without corroboration, and often from over 1000 miles away from the alleged attack sites." or something to this effect. I.e., don't pretend the sources do not exist, just put them in context as existing but unreliable, and two of them about rabies not about wild-animal violence. -- SMcCandlish ? ¢ >^???_??^?< 16:22, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, part of the problem is that predation by mountain lions is assumed in some cases when human remains are eaten, newspaper reporters and television reporters "sexy up" their coverage of human remains being eaten by mountain lions by claiming the human was attacked when some of the times there was no attack, the human fell or otherwise expired and the remains were eaten, no actual attack took place.

Hunting down references and citations is difficult since aftermath science-based evaluations of the root cause of death is often never reported, only the fact that remains were found.

We might consider appending citation needed to each case which is not verified as an actual attack.

Also if you notice the history of edits here, some editors have attempted to add incidents of mountain lion attack without suitable references or citations, and those proposed edits have been reverted routinely, so there is an effort to keep the article's accuracy at its current levels. Damotclese (talk) 16:41, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I also agree with the poster, and in fact I'm quite pleased that somebody would actually take the time to research such old incidents in enough depth to question their accuracy -- far too many factual inaccuracies or questions on Wikipedia simply get ignored or glossed over, and sometimes even rereferenced to sources that got their erroneous information from us in a misguided attempt to salvage it, so I'm pleased that some people actually understand that sourcing an incident from 1909 requires finding sources dated in 1909. I agree with the suggestion that we could retain them as alleged but unconfirmed mountain lion attacks, with a description much like what SMcCandlish suggested -- it's clearly sourceable that the claim has been made for those incidents even if their actual accuracy is in question. Bearcat (talk) 03:19, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I think I will add some preamble to the page addressing the suppositions and news reporting since some reported attacks aren't well supported as attacks, and often a coroner's office can not determine whether predation on human remains were after death or were the cause of death. Damotclese (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

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