Photographer Has Fist Fight With Mountain Lion After It Attacked His Dog

A photographer who pulled over to change lenses during a trip to Yellowstone National Park got into a fight with a 70-pound mountain lion after the big cat pinned him to the ground.

Adam Borkhus lived to tell the tale but had to be treated in a hospital and was given a series of extremely painful rabies shots.

The photographer tells Cowboy State Daily that when he pulled over, he let his two-year-old Labrador, Diesel, out of the vehicle so he could pee.

Seconds after letting Diesel out, he heard a yelp and found the Labrador entangled with a mountain lion.

“There wasn’t time to think. The scariest part about it was being afraid for my dog,” Borkhus tells Cowboy State Daily.

The photographer from Cody, Wyoming, had bear spray and a pistol on him but didn’t want to use either for fear of hitting Diesel.

So instead, Borkhus — who is 6 feet 3 and weighs 300 pounds — walked over and kicked the cougar in the face. The tactic worked, except the big cat now had its sights set on Borkhus.

“The lion spun around and looked at me,” he says. “Then it pounced and hit me in the chest.”

According to Borkhus, he landed on his back and used one hand to keep the lion’s jaws away from him while trying to hit it with the other.

“We tussled for maybe 20 seconds. I was trying to punch [the mountain lion], and he was swiping at me,” he says.

According to Outside, Borkhus grabbed hold of the feline’s ear and pulled as hard as he could, which caused it to run away.

After dusting himself off, he found Diesel waiting by the vehicle. “He ran back to the frickin’ car. And he was sitting there, like, ‘We need to go,'” Borkhus adds.

A Rare Attack

Borkhus was carrying bear spray because he has encountered grizzlies in the Teton wilderness before, never a mountain lion.

“This is about as rare an encounter as you can have,” Joshua Lisbon, a researcher at the Mountain Lion Foundation, tells Outside.

“Several unpredictable, random choices collided to produce an outcome on par with being struck by lightning — or maybe winning a lottery that you didn’t want to.”

Wyoming has never registered a fatal mountain lion attack, so Borkhus likely came as close as any.

The photographer doesn’t believe that the cat was preying on his dog; he thinks it was taken by surprise and became aggressively defensive.

Experts say in that situation, it is best to use bear spray rather than fight. Although your dog won’t thank you for it.

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Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Depositphotos.