Hiker chased by cougar after getting near cubs
Kyle Burgess, 26, started recording the interaction when he was hiking through Slate Canyon on Saturday
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Your support makes all the difference.A Utah hiker has survived a terrifying encounter with a cougar after he came near the animal’s cubs, all of which was captured in a six-minute video.
Kyle Burgess, 26, started recording the interaction when he was hiking through Slate Canyon on Saturday after he spotted the cougar’s cubs.
"You see the two cubs and one kind of runs off, but then I didn't notice mom was right there and that's when I knew it was not a good situation to be in," he told CBS News.
During the six-minute video, Mr Burgess roared and made other loud noises while a cougar followed him along the hike. He filmed himself slowly walking backwards as the animal pursued, with some moments showing the cougar lunging at the man.
The cougar was not deterred from following the man for more than five minutes.
"Go away," Mr Burgess said at one point. "Please, go away. I'm big and scary."
He implored the cougar to go back to her cubs, of whom the big cat likely thought she was protecting by pursuing the man.
"Go with your babies,” Mr Burgess told the cougar in the clip.
The video then showed the man throwing a rock at the cougar, which convinced the animal to run back to her cubs and leave Mr Burgess alone.
"Those six minutes were so long for me,” Mr Burgess said.
Mr Burgess was almost done with a 10-mile loop when he first came across the cougar and her cubs. He had to keep towards the Slate Canyon trailhead unless he wanted to experience an additional seven-mile journey back.
So the man waited 30 minutes before continuing on his path again, this time armed with a stick and rock in his hands in case the cougar made another appearance.
Other hikers passed by Mr Burgess after his interaction and they laughed when he asked if they’d seen any cougars nearby.
Mr Burgess saw no sign of the cougar and her cubs again on his way back down, allowing for him to leave the hike unscathed.
The terrifying moment was shared online by Mr Burgess, and it has since been viewed more than one million times, as of Tuesday.
“Sorry, not sorry for the language,” Mr Burgess wrote in his video’s caption, referencing the number of explicits he expressed throughout the six-minute clip. “I thought I was done for!”
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