Mt lion comes to call & purrs

[Okanagan]

Got an e-mail from my younger son who called in a lion that hid close to him and purred.  He was using Rainshadow vocals and the cougar seemed to be responding to them.  He said that he heard the sound for awhile before becoming conscious of it and realizing what it was.  He was set up in close cover, a rhododendron thicket but had good visibility within a short distance.   Someone at the Olympic Game Farm told him that cougars there will purr loudly for up to two hours, apparently communicating in a contented way with lions in other cages.

He twisted around quite a bit trying to see the animal and apparently it detected him, quit purring and never made another sound.

It was a fascinating account to me, an unusual calling event.

FWIW I'm on a vacation trip with wife at Cape Hatteras tonight, far from PNW cougars.

[snafu]

Neat experience. Hard to beat the hearing ability of a young person. My hearing is about shot.

[FinsnFur]

That wood be cool. Kinda creepy too knowing he was that close staring. What was going through his mind? Lunch?

[Okanagan]

My hearing is so bad I probably wouldn't hear it either.   

He said that it made three sounds overall.  It would take a bigger breath once in awhile and start over with a louder sound that morphed into the purr.

He heard something similar a couple of years ago that we wondered if it might be a bobcat or lion purr.  This time it was closer and more distinctive.  We have live cougar purring recorded by Rainshadow on our e-callers.  I didn't ask but my son probably played some purrs because he said that he tried several cougar vocals and the unseen cat purred back to all of them.

FWIW he has killed three called cougars, called several others, heard several vocalize,  plus tracked one till he jumped it and saw it.  That to say that he has some experience behind his speculations, but they are speculation.