Aggressive cougar stalks Utah trail runner for six harrowing minutes, all captured on video
- Kyle Burgess calls himself ‘the cougar guy’ after his video went viral
- It shows a cougar following him after he stumbled upon some cubs
Kyle Burgess’ evening run at Slate Canyon Trail in Utah ended up being unforgettable. Not just for him, but for anyone who’s watched the harrowing six-minute video of him fearing for his life as an aggressive cougar stalks him down a trail.
It all started Saturday when Burgess stumbled upon some cubs he thought were bobcats.
“Bobcats are, from what I’ve experienced in the past, they’re very mellow animals. They kind of see you and they just kind of walk away so that’s kind of what I thought was going to happen,” Burgess said. He was wrong.
As the 26-year-old began to record the cubs on his mobile phone, “I saw mama cougar and she just bolted straight towards me,” he said.
Burgess, who now calls himself “the cougar guy” after his video went viral last weekend, recorded the cougar who followed and charged him several times.
“Go away!” Burgess yells in the video as backs away from the cougar.
“I’ve never had this type of encounter before,” Burgess said. “Growing up here in Utah, I’ve always been around the mountains and kind of always been taught when you come encounter with these big animals, you got to make yourself look bigger. You have to make yourself be big and scary as I say in the video.”