You may hunt a cougar with a .22 but it’s not recommended. They get mighty uppity when you hit them with a .22 ... we hunt coyote’s with a .22mag and that’s the largest animal we’d try it on.
Yea a cougar is likely to stalk you back to home, then bat you around for 5 or 10 minutes, then kill you in revenge for making it mad.
SkyDancer,
For many years, treed cougar were killed with .22 Long Rifle guns. Cougar skulls are actually rather fragile and the .22 was used to make sure that the cougar’s skull was not shattered such that it could not be boiled, cleaned of tissue, and then set on a desk.
Body shots are another matter.
PS Having a pack of dogs as a backup did make such a light cartridge less risky than it may appear at first reading.