USA Today tells the story of Kyra Kopestonsky, an Ohio native who moved to Placerville, Col., because she likes hiking the trails.
While hiking has a large range of benefits, there’s also a chance of running into wildlife when going off-trail. On Monday, Kopestonsky walked roughly 10 minutes off the main trail of Down Valley Park. Suddenly, she heard a twig snap.
“I just sort of caught a glimpse of brown out of the corner of my eye and thought, ‘Oh, there’s an animal here,” she said. The lion was reportedly 10 or 15 feet away from her.
She did her best to lose the beast, which she said was probably about 150 pounds, but the lion kept following her. At one point she began heading down the very steep mountain as the lion got closer. Finally, for whatever reason, she began singing opera loudly, and that seemed to do the trick.
Of the mountain lion, Kopestonsky said, “It kind of put its ears down and just kept looking at me, and it sort of backed away. Then, it came around the bushes an came towards me again and crouched about 10 feet away.”
During the standoff, she called a friend who then alerted the San Miguel County Sheriff. Sheriff Bill Masters told USA Today that while there have been dozens of sightings of mountain lions in his 34 years in the service, this is only the second he’s heard of a stalking incident. Masters also complimented Kopestonsky for keeping calm and knowing what to do. Perhaps “singing opera” might be added to future guidelines on dealing with dangerous wildlife.
This isn’t the first close call with a mountain lion this year. In late June, a mountain lion ended up in a Utah shopping center parking lot. To keep it from attacking customers, police tranquilized the animal, which unfortunately also killed it.
