I didn't see anyone post the link or the story yet, so I figured I would.
It's from chainreaction.comsquirrels.htmOpen ↗, towards the bottom.
Park bicyclist conquers cat
by Mike Dawson Peninsula Daily News Sunday, May 26, 1996
PORT ANGELES - Of all the humans the cougar could have attacked Friday, it had the rotten luck to
tangle with Phil Anderson, dog wrestler, jujitsu fan. "I went to my back, wrapped my legs around
him, rolled over and mounted him and started choking him, choking him forever," Anderson said
Saturday. "It was just nuts."
Anderson, 28, a Port Angeles mountain bike enthusiast, spent Saturday on the couch, healing from the
cougar attack in Olympic National Park. He had been riding his mountain bike on the Wolf Creek Trail
Friday afternoon. The trail is an old road that runs from Whiskey Bend on the Elwha River to
Hurrican Ridge. Whiskey Bend is about 20 miles west of Port Angeles. It is also the head of the
popular Hume's Ranch Trail.
Anderson had ridden his bike up Wolf Creek Trail for about two hours. On the way down, he stopped
150 feet from the parking lot, dismounted the bike and removed his helmet. He picked up a sweatshirt
he had left trail-side on his way up.
He had just pulled the heavy, black sweatshirt down over this head when he spied his opponent. "He
just moved out of the shadows, so smoothly and quickly." When the cat came at him, he started
running backwards, he said. He figured the cougar weighed about 80 pounds. The cougar kept coming,
then leapt at Anderson's chest.
Anderson fell to his back, locked his legs around the cougar, flipped over and buried his thumbs in
the animal's throat. He kept the front paws pinned back with his forearms, he said. He had the cat
pretty much subdued, but it wouldn't die.
"I was watching him go in and out," Anderson said. "We were at a stalemate."
To his surprise, the cat made no noise while it struggled, Anderson said. He, however, was shouting
for help. After about two and a half or three minutes, the cat still wriggling, Anderson got his
thumb in the cougar's mouth. He just smashed it," Anderson said. That gave the cat the edge. As
Anderson lost his grip, that cat's claws went into a whirl, ripping at the thick, baggy sweatshirt.
Some of the claws caught Anderson's chest. "He put a lot more holes in my sweatshirt than he did in
me," Anderson said. Not wanting any more, the combatants exploded away from each other and ran.
Anderson ran down the trail, grabbed a baseball bat in his van and returned for his bike.
The cat had stuck around, still looking for food. "He carried off my bag with four peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches in it," Anderson said.
It was the end of Anderson's first cougar sighting.
Anderson is a short, wiry, high-energy kind of guy with powerful arms and legs, a flat stomach and
short hair. He's an Olympic Peninsula version of a surfer dude, with a passion for speed and
gravity. He's also a mountain bike guide and unemployed waiter. The cougar, rather than picking on
a tasty tourist, jumped a former college wrestler. And he has some other skills that prepared him
for cougar fighting, he said. "I've been doing this jujitsu dog thing." While unemployed last
winter, he spent a lot of time wrestling with a 120-pound German Shepherd named Forest, who was
named for the trees.
Forest, who loves to wrestle, has been getting a taste of jujitsu, too. Anderson employs a move he
picked up from "ultimate fighting," a new anything-goes sport in which people fight without gloves.
The move is a defensive tactic, to help a little guy take down a big guy and choke him out. Anderson
had already mastered the move on Forest. So when the cougar came along, Anderson was ready.
"It's something I think about all the time," he said.
He had good reason to imagine a cat fight. Cougar sightings have been reported in the Hurricane
Ridge and Elwha districts of the Park once a week for the last month, ranger Gary Gissell said.
At least two cougars, including one with a limp, have been identified. There may be one or two
more, he said.
Rangers don't plan to hunt down Anderson's opponent, he said. With so many in the area, there would
be no way to tell which one to hunt. Besides, he said, Anderson may have turned the cougar's
attention to rabbits. "Hopefully, he may have turned the cougar off from hunting humans," he said.
Gissell said he looked over the fight scene and found cougar tracks and signs of a struggle. He also
learned, through Anderson's admission, that Anderson was riding on a trail where bikes are
forbidden.
The fine is $50. However, Gissel let the injured wrestler off the hook.
"The cougar was his warning," he said.
--
Warm Regards,
Claire Petersky
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