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Man Chased By Cougar For Five Minutes During Terrifying Hiking Ordeal

Man Chased By Cougar For Five Minutes During Terrifying Hiking Ordeal

Jared Smith was pursued by the beast while out in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Salt Lake City

Jake Massey

Jake Massey

A man in the US had a terrifying and prolonged encounter with a cougar while hiking.

Jared Smith was out on Broads Fork Trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Salt Lake City, Utah, yesterday (Thursday 13 May) when he was joined by the large cat.

It proceeded to tail him for the next five minutes, with Jared trying to appear both big and calm as he backpedalled and repeatedly said: "I'm going away, I promise I'm not going to bug you."

Somehow, he also managed to film at the same time, which is of course great news for us. See for yourself here:


Recounting what went down, Jared told FOX 13: "I was running back down the trail and was probably about a mile from getting back to the parking lot when I heard something off to the side of the trail and looked and there was a cougar oh probably 15-20 feet away from me... definitely startled me.

"Periodically the cougar would pounce and was baring it's teeth and kick it's legs and its tail up, almost like a little sprint right at me.

"If you watch the full video you can see my voice kind of crack at those points in time because it scared me."

Hey Jared, no need to defend the voice crack. If it were me it would just be five minutes of screaming in an incredibly high pitch - but thankfully there would be no video evidence, as there's no way I'd be thinking about whipping my camera out in that situation.

Anyway, as the cougar continued to follow him, Jared's only concern was making sure he got back to his family safely.

He said: "Honestly for me the thing that's most important to me is my family and I have a wife and a child and thinking I need to make sure I make it home from this.

"I know cougar attacks are very uncommon but I believe in this situation she was probably protecting her cubs so I know they'll do just about anything to keep their cubs safe."

Lord that's worse than the Canadian geese by the canal.
FOX 13

Mercifully, it eventually left him be.

"It was about five minutes into the encounter that she just veered off to the side of the trail and I continued to back up for another minute or two continuing to talk because I couldn't see where she went off to," he said.

"After a couple of minutes of doing that once I felt like she was no longer close to me I started running down the trail trying to distance myself as much as I could."

So in the end, he got away - but he'd have been better off standing his ground, holding eye contact and making himself look big, according to The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

Well, that's much easier said than done now isn't it, The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources?

Featured Image Credit: FOX 13

Topics: US News, Animals, Cats