Nature
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If you’re familiar with mountain lions, or cougars as they are commonly known, you’ll already be aware of their tendency to take down prey way above their weight class. Despite their relatively small body and head, the cougar can attach itself to the neck of even the largest animals and use their powerful jaws to bite them into submission.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.However, what many don’t know is that these aggressive big cats can even take down the unofficial tanks of North America: the bull elk.
In a recent video that went viral, Charles Zelenka, Colorado, woke to the terrifying sight of a mountain lion feasting on a huge elk it had likely killed, right on Zelenka’s front porch. As you would expect of a cat that had just wrestled a 240-kilogram (530-pound) cow elk to the ground, the cougar is less than pleased with the man’s presence and becomes extremely defensive.
"I thought it must have been hit by a car or something and made it up to my porch to die," Zelenka told the GJ Sentinel.
"I was just about ready to walk out there and all of a sudden a mountain lion popped up from underneath the elk, so apparently it had a death grip on the elk and was underneath it," he continued.
"...When I saw that mountain lion, I started filming right away. I didn't know what to do. I was standing in my underwear going 'What the heck.''
Before the cougar reaped the rewards of the kill, it ran off. Zelenka states that he "feels bad" for scaring it away from its meal, and sadly the elk meat could no longer be consumed by others as it had been left out for too long.
