A woman had a close encounter with nature’s majesty on a hike in the Utah mountains when she came across a beautiful young mountain lion that took her breath away.
Originally from Michigan, 40-year-old Denise Peterson moved to Utah to be closer to the mountains and mountain lions. In mid-April this year, Peterson was stunned, while hiking, to spot a young female lion sitting alone across the canyon.
“She was sitting out on the ridge, looking at the valley below,” Peterson told The Epoch Times. “I pulled out the scope that I had with me and settled in to watch what she was doing.”
Peterson watched carefully as the young lion meandered from the ridge to several rock outcroppings, then attempted to hunt down a bird but failed.
She continued to watch the young lion as she climbed on top of a flat rock and basked in the sun. During the three hours that Peterson was observing her, she was vocalizing, likely trying to call her mother.
Peterson, a certified geographic information systems (GIS) analyst and founder of Utah Mountain Lion Conservation (UMLC), guessed that the female lion was around 10 months old, and still “highly reliant on her mother” for food and wild survival skills. However, she noted that the young lion was confident.
She wrote: “It’s so rare to see them in the wild that I cherish every time I get to see one of them. ... It’s the moments like this that keep us going!”
According to Peterson, mountain lions are often “very misunderstood.” Each has its own unique personality, and the species is adept at coexisting with humans.
One of her most memorable mountain lion encounters, Peterson says, was her first wild sighting without hounds.
Reflecting on the fond memory, Peterson said that she and her colleagues were part of a study of cougar clusters in northern Utah in the spring of 2022, knowing there was a mountain lion and her two cubs in the area. While wrapping up, the team noticed movement ahead and saw one lion running up the draw toward deer.
Peterson said: “My partner was on the ridge above me, so I radioed him to keep an eye out for the cat as it was headed in his general direction. As the lion disappeared out of sight, a second one appeared, slowly walking up the same draw that the younger cat had run up moments before. I was able to pull out my phone and get a video of her as she made her way uphill.”
“It was an incredible moment!” she said.
Until that very moment, Peterson had spent hours tracking and catching them on trail cameras and had even assisted with collaring mountain lions for the study, however, this was the first time they had seen mountain lions on the landscape as they were traveling through.
“There’s something truly special about seeing a mountain lion in the wild, let alone two at the same time,” she said. “I’m so grateful for that moment.”
Peterson founded the conservation group UMLC in 2017 as a passion project and it grew from there. Today, the group is a fiscally-sponsored project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE) concerned with mountain lion biology and behavior, conflict prevention and coexistence, and ongoing research.
Managing human-lion conflict is crucial to the survival of the mountain lion species, according to Peterson. Overhunting and trapping can destabilize their social structures and cause conflict with humans. If a mother is killed, her orphaned cubs—who are reliant on their mothers for up to two years—are unlikely to survive. Mountain lions are also sometimes struck and killed by vehicles and can be killed by farmers when there is a conflict with livestock.
UMLC uses footage from its 50 trail cameras, stationed around northern Utah, to tell the stories of mountain lions at school events and with communities concerned about lions in their area. The group is also trying to protect the lion population from a bill signed by Governor Spencer Cox that exposes Utah’s mountain lions to year-round hunting and trapping.
“Mountain lions, like any animal, wild or domestic, can potentially be dangerous to humans, but the danger is blown out of proportion,” Peterson said. “I’ve been face to face with a female mountain lion with kittens, and did not feel genuinely threatened. I interpreted what her body language was telling me and acted accordingly. Many situations can be diffused by knowing what to do.”
Mountain lions are conflict-averse and avoid humans as much as possible, Peterson said, but it’s imperative to respect their space and know how to interpret their body language.
If a mountain lion is aggressive you should keep a safe distance, make yourself look big, maintain eye contact, keep kids close and pets on leashes, and talk to or yell at them. If they try to approach, throw something; if they attack, fight back. However, if you come across a mountain lion that is not displaying aggression, there is “no harm in enjoying the sighting,” she said.
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