Proceedings of the Seventh Mountain Lion Workshop

100 REDUCING PUMA ATTACKS · Fitzhugh et al.
Figure 6. Proportions of human age classes
in different types of incidents, as affected by
human group size (n = 379).
categories and in the two-person non-attack
category. This may reflect the relative use
of wildland trails by single and paired adults
versus children. However, the categories of
attacks on two people and on 3-5 people
show increasing proportions of groups
mostly composed of children, while the nonattack
categories for the same size groups
still show a predominance of groups mostly
composed of adults. This indicates that,
while attacks on groups of two or more
people are much fewer than attacks on
individuals, children in these larger groups
are at only slightly less risk than children
alone.
Another way of viewing the same data is
to scale each column separately and
proportion the age groups within columns
rather than being based on total incidents
(Figure 6). When we do this, the increased
proportion of attacks on mostly-children
groups in the larger group sizes becomes
more noticeable, although sample size is
small (n = 16 for children in groups of >2
people; n = 17 for adults in the same size
groups). Among the 17 groups of 3 or more
people composed mostly of adults, children
were attacked in 11 of those groups. For
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH MOUNTAIN LION WORKSHOP
example, a group of 2 or 3 children (11-12
years of age) plus 5-6 adults were on a
kayak tour, camped on Compton Island in
Johnstone Strait, V.I., B.C. recently. The
group had just gotten out of the kayaks and
was on the beach, standing in a group with
the children in the middle, when a 100-lb.
puma charged out of the brush, grabbed a
12-year-girl and dragged her off. Shouting
and noise made by the adults made the cat
drop the girl, who survived the incident
(Robert Hansen, Pacific Rim National Park,
Vancouver Island, B.C., personal
communication, 8 May, 2003).
Is It Safe to Sleep on the Ground?
We know of 12 victims who were
accosted in their sleep (Figure 7). Only one,
a man in Argentina in 1898, was seriously
injured, and details of that account are
lacking (Pritchard 1902; Roosevelt 1914:29;
Barnes 1960:119,122). Seven victims were
uninjured, and 4 others suffered minor
injuries. For example, a boy was sleeping
on a mat at night when a puma walked up,
pawed him, and tried to drag the mat away.
His father rescued him. The boy suffered
scratches and had 10 stitches in his ear.
(Phoenix Gazette and Tucson Citizen 1994;
Danz 1999: 276-277; personal
Figure 7. Injuries that occurred when victim
was attacked while sleeping (n = 12).