Man claims attack by lion, saved by a bear

This story is nuts! Apparently, an avid hiker was doing his thang, hiking away, when he came across a familiar group of bears, mother and her cubs, and he was watching them do what bears do at a distance of 40 feet. Now, we all know that if you are in the woods and come across a mother bear and her cubs you better do your best not to get noticed or seem aggressive because mama bear will mess you up, but apparently this man knows these bears and even says he's played "patty cake" with a cub while the mother looked on not worried at all. Anyhoo, this guy was watching his favorite bears when all the sudden a mountain lion attacks him. The man thinks the lion was stalking the cubs but decided he was easier prey. The man's large hiking backpack helped saved him from the attack but it was the mother bear who intervened and messed up the lion till it ran away. Incredible story!

Man claims attack by lion, saved by a bear

www.paradisepost.com...

A Paradise man says he is lucky to be alive after an attack by a mountain lion Monday morning.
Robert Biggs, 69, often hikes in the Bean Soup Flat area, which is about a mile and a half above Whisky Flats. He came across a mother bear, a yearling and a newborn, which were about 40 feet from where he was standing.

After watching the bear family for a few minutes he decided to leave them be and turned to walk back up the trail. As he turned, a mountain lion pounced on him grabbing hold of his backpack with all four paws.

"They usually grab hold of your head with all four paws, but my backpack was up above my head and (the mountain lion) grabbed it instead," Biggs said. "It must have been stalking the little bear, but it was on me in seconds."

He wrestled with the cat, striking it in the head with a rock pick. The cat screamed when it was hit with the pick, but didn't let go, Biggs said. Before he knew it, the mother bear came from behind and pounced on the cat, tearing its grip from the backpack.

The bear and the cat battled for about 15 seconds, Biggs said, until the cat finally ran away. The bear went on its way as well. Biggs ended up with bite marks, scratches and bruises to his arm, but was otherwise uninjured.

Biggs, a naturist, has hiked that same trail several times and has seen the mother bear and its cub last spring and fall. He said the encounters with the bears were friendly.

"(The cub) stood up on its hind legs and put its paws up and I
got to play patty-cake with it," he said.

The patty-cake game was simply touching the bottom of its paw with his open palm, more like a high-five. He said the mother watched the two play and her only reaction was to call the cub back. Biggs said he is certain that the mother that saved him during the mountain lion attack is the same bear he has seen in that area before.

Originally posted by Swills
This story is nuts!

Not sure why you think this story is nuts.........animals will naturally protect their young from perceived threats........and it is not unknown for animals to protect other animal species......in the wild it probably happens much more often than we think........it's just that it's not observed by man most of the time.

I used to live in Paradise back in the 1980s, when it was still a little podunk town in the Sierra Nevada mountains. There are still plenty of large predators running around in the woods up there.

It's a wonderful story, thanks for sharing it!

I would say in this case, the cat, regardless if it was stalking the cub or the person was to close for comfort for the mama bear. I do not think the bear was necessarily saving the man, but the simple fact the cat was too close to the cubs.

The bear might have saved the man on purpose..you never know. Sometimes animals can bond with other animals, and humans can bond with animals. Like those pictures of the wolf and polar bear making friends.

But most of all the attack and the noise of the screaming Lion was enough for the bear to get scared and angry to go out and protect her cub.

Very lucky man.

What a great story, nice find

I wonder what the bear would have said if it could talk for an interview, perhaps something like:

"Well so i was just watching the kids playing with the ugly furless human, hes been good with them in the past so im not bothered, suddenly i hear a scream and assumed at first my kids were in danger, too my surprise the human was being attacked, i dont know if he was protecting them for me, but i hate violence around my kids and theres going to be any fights its going to be me. So i slapped the kitty about for a bit and it got bored and ran off, the human seemed okay so i grabbed the kids and walked off encase the silly feline turned" - totally how it came across

could be fake. could be legit. we will never know.

there was another guy who played withe bears. wound up being eaten.

these animals are wild, they might view him as friendly one second and a main course at the snap of a twig.

He's lucky the bear, in an state of aggression as a result of the fight with the lion, didn't turn on him.


assuming it's all true.

Originally posted by Logical one

Originally posted by Swills
This story is nuts!

Not sure why you think this story is nuts.........animals will naturally protect their young from perceived threats........and it is not unknown for animals to protect other animal species......in the wild it probably happens much more often than we think........it's just that it's not observed by man most of the time.

Then let me elaborate. This man claims to have played patty cake with said cubs while the mother bear approves. This man was attacked by a mountain lion and rescued by the mother bear. You can make the claim that she was protecting her cubs but if that's your claim it could also be said the mother bear could have moved her and her cubs to safety while the mountain lion attacks the human. So yeah, this story is nuts.

reply to post by Swills


Or mama bear could have said, "ain't my cubs, not my problem" and let the lion eat the man. Pretty crazy though nonetheless. If only animals could speak.

reply to post by Skewed


Yeah, that's the same argument I made in the post above you. From what we've read from this short article the man was known to the mother bear and her cubs, although his story about playing patty cake with said cubs could be complete nonsense. But if true, my guess is that the mother bear saved the man while protecting her cubs as well.

Talk about a cowardly lion

What a touching story and thanks for sharing. I'm not just touched by the way the man says he's been able to approach and actually intreract with this family of bears before, but how they seem to respond to an attack upon him by the Cat. I'm sure we can never know if the Bear was actually feeling protective of her 'Friend' among the humans....I'd like to think so... More likely, she just knew that fighting to the death between the Human and the Cat was bad bad for her cubs if the 'Nice' Human lost the fight and the Cat decided it was still feeling pissed and looking for another to add to it's dinner plate.

I think I'll stick with my mental version instead..... The mother bear was responding in it's version of friendship with the guy who'd shown kindness to her and her cubs in the past.

Either way, it's a warm story.

Originally posted by Crakeur
there was another guy who played withe bears. wound up being eaten.
.

You're talking about Timothy Treadwell I would presume?

I don't find this story to be much of a stretch.. I have seen and heard of animals doing a variety of "not the norm" instances. I think for anyone to accept a story like this, they would need to have lived in wilderness surroundings. I am a ore prospector, and I sometimes am out in the wilderness miles away from any road or people and I've seen numerous things that stagger the mind and intellect.

With regards to this story, I think many have missed the part that the lion had been stalking one of the cubs. So the Mother Bear was completely aware of this lions presence. And I gathered from the naturist (Biggs) that this was not his first rodeo with the mother and her cubs either...

This is a great story and am thinking of using it in one of my Mondo Bizarro episodes.

Originally posted by Swills
Then let me elaborate. This man claims to have played patty cake with said cubs while the mother bear approves. This man was attacked by a mountain lion and rescued by the mother bear. You can make the claim that she was protecting her cubs but if that's your claim it could also be said the mother bear could have moved her and her cubs to safety while the mountain lion attacks the human. So yeah, this story is nuts.

edit on 28-3-2012 by Swills because: (no reason given)

Hmmm, still not sure why this story is "nuts"............the mother could be protecting her cubs, the man or both........but it still isn't THAT crazy.........like I said it is NOT unknown for one species to protect another...........
as for the bear running off........well I would suspect that the bear would be more use to standing its ground and seeing off threats, rather than running away whilst the threat is distracted......besides this would require a fair bit of intelligent planning by the bear to run away whilst the the lion is distracted........much more likely that instinct took over.......and that instinct was to see off the danger.

reply to post by Logical one


Well agree to disagree, I dunno what to tell ya.

Originally posted by Swills
reply to post by Logical one

 

Well agree to disagree, I dunno what to tell ya.

Let me elaborate:

Bear protecting her cubs obviously not unusual.

One animal species protecting another animal species.......more rarely observed.......but again not unusual.

Man forming bond with wild animals......again not a commonly seen sight.......but not entirely unusual.

So I would say nice story......the man was saved whether intentionally or unintentionally by the bear......but not really "nuts".

Just another day for Grizzly Adams...

I find it hard to imagine a wild mother bear, no matter how friendly to people, letting someone close enough to her cub to touch. Not saying it didn't happen, but if it did the man in question had questionable judgement. I've grown up with black bears in my backyard (even chased them off the school playground before recess) and they can be dangerous. Especially with young to protect.

But maybe it did happen that way. I had a strange wild animal encounter while on vacation in Florida. It was early morning and only a few folks on the beach. We were swimming and noticed a fin in the water.... well, you can imagine how quick we made it to the shallows. Then we realized it was a small pod of dolphins. We were about waist high, just watching, when an adult suddenly headed for us. We were backing up when we noticed the baby at her side.

What happened next has been one of the highlights of my life. The mother hung back but the baby swam right up to us. It was almost like mom was saying "Come meet these things.". The baby bumped into us, we were laughing and petting it. After a minute or two mom clicked and the baby returned and they went on their way. An absolutely incredible three minutes.

So maybe he's telling the truth and events unfolded as stated. Certainly stranger things have happened.

Thanks for sharing, OP.