“...should still be in the play-with-it-’’til-it’s -dead phase... Once fight-or-flight is triggered...
Good points. So did this cat not know enough to stay away from a larger animal (in this case a human) and tried to take a bite out of him - and the guy understandably defended himself, or - was the cat so unafraid that it came up to the guy, the guy went to grab or pet the cat - and then the cat freaked out?
Even if the guy did do something stupid and tried to pet the mountain lion, from the looks of his injuries, he hopefully has learned his lesson. No sense worrying about the dead “kitten” anymore.
Cats are curious...who knows. It might have approached him, from behind, I would think. If he was running, well....we had a youngish cougar in the dunes up north. People would drag things behind their ATVs for it to play with. I don't think they have an inborn fear of man. That's what's so annoying about the ban on hunting them with dogs(Oregon). They don't learn to fear us, or dogs.
The guy was plenty messed up, but only 3 stitches from the cat. Maybe he tried to fend it off and it grabbed his hand.