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A mountain lion approaching a vehicle at night and standing up against the side is not a random event. It is a deliberate investigation. The more useful question is what drew the lion to the vehicle in the first place, and whether being in a rooftop tent changes anything.
A young guide who grew up near the edge of tiger forest in Sumatra said he had never once seen a Sumatran tiger in the wild. His father, who spent his entire life in that forest, had seen one. Once. Fewer than 400 left on earth, and the people who live closest to them almost never see them.
You can watch the footage and feel two things simultaneously. The first is obvious. The second takes a moment longer, a quiet suspicion that this probably doesn’t happen. That mountain lions don’t actually approach sleeping humans in their sleeping bags, sniff them, and walk away. Your skepticism is reasonable.
Most people who see a black wolf for the first time assume they’re looking at a different animal entirely. The black wolf is not a separate species, but it carries a history that makes it genuinely unlike its gray counterparts in ways that go well beyond color.
A jaguar approached a hammock in the Peruvian Amazon, sniffed the sleeping camper, and disappeared into the darkness. The camper woke up seconds later with no idea what had just been inches from his face. Here is what the footage actually tells us.
Trail cameras don’t have opinions. They sit in the dark, motion-triggered, recording whatever walks past. And occasionally the footage shows something that makes you rethink every solo hike you’ve ever taken in forested country.
