I’ve spent my whole life living in a place where lots of cougars also live, so for my own safety I was raised to RESPECT THE COUGAR. Cougars are not “cute.” Cougars are not giant kitties. Cougars are majestic, dangerous beasts that are probably sitting in a tree above you right now waiting to drop down and fasten their giant jaws around the back of your stupid little neck.
Or, TL;DR: The operative word in “mountain lion” is LION.
But that was before I saw this video of a bunch of cougars in a Florida sanctuary waiting for their dinner. Did you know that cougars chirp? Like adorable baby robot kittens!?!? Did you know that they squeak and purr?
These cougars (also called pumas, panthers and mountain lions) may be living at a sanctuary in Florida, but they are just as wild as ever — and getting this close to one in real life might end poorly for you. Luckily though, Big Cat Rescue captured some stunningly close footage of the cougars at feeding, giving a great view, without getting near those claws.
I still don’t want to get eaten by a cougar, and I still don’t think people should keep big cats as pets, and I’m not a fucking idiot, but kindly indulge me in one moment of OH MEE GAAAHHH LOOK AT THE PRECIOUS BAAAAAYBEEEEEEEEZ!!!!! (And anyway, even if I was sincerely drawn to some IRL cougar-snuggling, their transformation back into hissing, raw-meat-shredding claw-monsters at the end of this video is a pretty handy deterrent.)
