Watch Out! (Full Episode) | Hunter vs. Hunted | Nat Geo Animals

NARRATOR: A trail runner in the Colorado Rockies ends up running for his life. TRAVIS KAUFFMAN: I heard some pine needles rustle behind me, and then I saw a young mountain lion running after me. NARRATOR: And a peaceful walk in the Canadian woods turns deadly. (growling) (man yelling) FRED DEJARLAIS: All I could hear was the snap of his teeth. NARRATOR: When we venture into the realm of wild animals, sometimes a chance encounter leaves us fighting for our lives. It's a story of hunter versus hunted, and only one may survive. ♪ ♪ The American West is rich with untamed expanses that people and wild animals share. Whether seen or unseen, our paths often cross on the rugged trails through pine woods and craggy rocks. Like those in Fort Collins, Colorado's Horsetooth Mountain Open Space. There, on an early February day, 31-year-old Travis Kauffman hits the trails. TRAVIS: The plan for that day was supposed to be like a 12 to 15-mile run day depending on how I felt. NARRATOR: Days like this are exactly why Travis relocated to Fort Collins a few years ago. TRAVIS: I moved to Colorado to be part of the outdoor scene, really. I just realized how great it was to kind of be out in the middle of the woods and how nice workouts kind of went by, I guess. They go by a lot quicker whenever you have a change in topography and all kinds of new things to look at. NARRATOR: Among the sights on these trails is a wide array of wildlife. There's prey... TY PETERSBURG: We have a lot of mule deer. We get some elk usage. We're getting moose that will come down from the high country. NARRATOR: And there are predators. (roar) PETERSBURG: We have lots and lots of black bears. We have a lot of bobcats. We've discovered that the Front Range of Colorado is excellent mountain lion habitat. NARRATOR: As a frequent visitor to these wild spaces, and an environmental consultant by trade, Travis has a healthy respect for the animals who call these woodlands home. TRAVIS: I've had the thought in the back of my mind that there's the potential of encountering certain large cats or even bears up there. But it's pretty far in the back of my mind, too. NARRATOR: Today, Travis is intent on tackling the monster Towers Trail for the very first time to train for an upcoming race. TRAVIS: Towers is a little over three and a quarter miles from bottom to top, and it's one of those runs where it's just kind of like a kick in the guts. You run, and your goal is to try to keep your legs moving as much as possible, no matter how slow they end up going on certain of those inclines. NARRATOR: Travis powers up the grueling slope, making good time and enjoying the challenge. TRAVIS: When I got to the top, I was just happy to kind of see the whole view. Get the 360 panorama up there, and see the beautiful mountains to the west, and then Fort Collins to the east, and, uh, took that in for a few minutes and prepared myself for kind of the rest of the run. NARRATOR: As Travis heads back down the mountain, treacherous trail conditions keep him from his planned route, so he veers off onto the West Ridge Trail spur. Running alone, as he often does, Travis keeps his eyes and ears open. TRAVIS: I heard some pine needles rustle... (rustling) ...kind of to the right side downslope and then behind me. And I looked back in that direction, and that's when I first saw the cat. NARRATOR: Travis quickly sizes up the mountain lion even as it sizes up him. TRAVIS: I could tell that it wasn't a full-grown cat, but I could also tell that it was large enough to be a threat, a legitimate threat, and as it came toward me, I kind of fully realized its size. (yells) NARRATOR: Travis reacts as he should, to a lion he estimates weighs about 40 pounds, he tries to scare it away. TRAVIS: I threw my hands up in the air. It just kind of kept running at me. (mountain lion screeches) NARRATOR: Late on a November afternoon, about 1,000 miles to the north, another adventurous soul sets off into the wilderness. 22-year-old geology student Kenton Carnegie leaves the remote mining camp at Points North, Canada, to go for a hike, also alone. He's an intern for an aerial surveying team that's been grounded by bad weather, so he has some time to explore. Carnegie doesn't know this remote region of Saskatchewan, an expanse of untamed wilderness stretching hundreds of miles. And he doesn't know the ways of the animals living here, or that eyes are watching him. As darkness falls, temperatures start plummeting well below zero. (owl hoots) When Carnegie doesn't return to camp by dinnertime, his team members set out to look for him. They're locals, so they know what Carnegie doesn't-- powerful predators stalk the wilderness, and winter has made them hungry. But no one is prepared for the horror of what they find. There in the shadows, along the edge of a trail, they discover a body. Kenton Carnegie is dead, and his remains have been partially consumed. They return to camp to call the authorities. The nearest police station is 50 miles away. ROSALIE TSANNIE-BURSETH: The call came at 6:30. By about 8:30 or 9:00, we landed at Points North. NARRATOR: Officials meet Carnegie's shaken friends. Together, they begin to search the woods. Officer Al Noey leads the way. AL NOEY: I was the first man going into the scene. We're all single file walking in. It's pitch black. You can't see nothing. TSANNIE-BURSETH: As we were walking towards the site, I told the guys to fire off some shots, because I could almost hear a bit of walking. NARRATOR: Something in the darkness seems to be following their every step. They press on deeper into the night. NOEY: We continued down the path, we're going like along the shoreline, and we came to the spot where the workers had seen him originally. TSANNIE-BURSETH: When we got to the site, I said, "Was the body over, over there? Exactly where was the body?" Kenton Carnegie's body is gone! (howl) But whatever killed him still lurks in the darkness. NOEY: I had my flashlight panning back and forth. And when I panned back, you can see eyes looking at you. I couldn't tell what it was. What creature is out there? What animal is responsible for Carnegie's gruesome death? NARRATOR: Alone on the trails of Colorado's Horsetooth Mountain, Travis Kauffman is being attacked by a mountain lion. TRAVIS: It latched on to my wrist. I tried to kind of hit it away with my knee, but then it just was clawing and digging its claws into my thighs here. NARRATOR: But why is this lion attacking Travis? (hiss) Mountain lions have two claims to fame: they're listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the animals with the most names. JASON SURFACE: They have about 40 different names. The most common, obviously, is mountain lion or cougar, puma, panther, shadow cat. The scientific name is Puma concolor. NARRATOR: And they're the most successful land animals in the Western Hemisphere. (panting) Adults range from 50 to 200 pounds, but these solitary hunters can bag prey much larger than themselves. SURFACE: They're really a specialized machine. I mean, they're capable of taking down incredible, incredible prey, especially a tom. A tom can take down a large bull elk, a large bull moose. NARRATOR: This area is bursting with big game, usually much more appealing to lions than people. SURFACE: Their primary food source in this area is mule deer. And there's an abundance of mule deer, so there's certainly a good food base for them. NARRATOR: Cougars are remarkable hunters, specifically designed to stalk and kill large prey. PETERSBURG: They're very, very smart. They have some incredible weapons and tools at their disposal. Their ability to use their claws and their jaws are pretty impressive. They have some size to them. NARRATOR: But nowhere in the cougars' massive range did these cats gain a reputation as man-eaters. In fact, there have been fewer than 20 fatalities in North America in more than 100 years. Even in Colorado, where cougar populations are thriving, attacks are rare. SURFACE: Travis was the 17th attack that we've had since 1990, and we've had three fatalities. NARRATOR: Yet there's no question this cat wants to make a meal of Travis. TRAVIS: I was just really trying to actively get the cat off of me. At which point I tried to throw it downslope off the trail. Unfortunately, it was still attached pretty well, and grappled on and took me with it. We just kind of slid and shuffled and ended up down there by that tree. NARRATOR: Typically, mountain lions avoid people, because in many areas, we've hunted them almost to oblivion. They remain a shadowy presence in the wilderness, even where they're not hunted. SURFACE: When you think about how many people are out there on the landscape in areas where you've got mountain lions, they're just not seeing them, because mountain lions really don't have an interest in us at all. We're not their prey. NARRATOR: But this cougar isn't letting go of Travis. TRAVIS: One of its bottom teeth was stuck through my hand. And I could just feel that nerve getting hit, over and over again with one of its really sharp kind of canines on the underside. I could just feel these two fingers get lit up a little bit with that electrical sense. And I was thinking, "Well, there goes a severed nerve potentially." I felt pretty alone at that point knowing that there wasn't really anybody by to kind of lend a hand and peel this cat off me. NARRATOR: Why is the cat so determined? Could there be a clue in the fact that these animals are often nocturnal, but this one is hunting by day? In remote Saskatchewan, 22-year-old Kenton Carnegie has apparently been killed by a wild animal. There are plenty of likely suspects. The woods of northern Canada are home to some of the most ferocious predators on Earth. Among them are wolf packs that take down big prey. (growl) Deer, moose, and bison. (yelp) But despite the wolves' fearsome reputation, there has never been a confirmed human fatality from a wild wolf attack in North America. Only one beast stalking this wilderness is a confirmed man-killer: the black bear. Males can weigh over 500 pounds and reach speeds faster than 30 miles an hour. Their jaws are large enough to fit around a human head and can easily snap a man's spine in two. Did a bear attack Kenton Carnegie? Bears typically hibernate through the winter, so in late fall when Kenton is killed, they're on the hunt to fatten up for the long months ahead. People are far from standard black bear prey, with only one or two human fatalities a year. But maybe Carnegie startled a hungry bear and paid the price. The search party looks for Carnegie's body and any sign of whatever may have killed him. TSANNIE-BURSETH: I knew that something was nearby. I know it; you feel it. NARRATOR: Four hours after Carnegie goes missing, they find a trail of blood that leads to his body. Just then, an eerie cry breaks the silence. The howl of a wolf! When I heard that, I, I never normally get chills down my spine, but I did that night. NARRATOR: Is it possible that for the first time in recorded North American history, a human has been hunted down and killed by a wolf? (howling) Like cougars, wolves usually avoid humans... (gunshot) ...because we've hunted them to near extinction. But has that changed? Only a year before and less than 100 miles away, still in Saskatchewan, another attack showed not all wolves are afraid of man. It's New Year's Eve, and 55-year-old uranium miner Fred Dejarlais leaves work. He jogs two miles back toward the company camp. He's almost there, when suddenly, he comes face to face with an aggressive and advancing wolf. He tries to scare it off, but the wolf stands its ground. Will Dejarlais meet the same terrible fate as Kenton Carnegie? NARRATOR: In Colorado's wild spaces, with a cougar's jaws clamped around his right hand, Travis Kauffman makes a bold move. TRAVIS: I was able to get my, my left knee to kind of pin down the back side of its legs, so I wouldn't get scratched down here, and deflected some of the front paws and claws with my left hand for a little while. NARRATOR: What led this cougar to risk attacking a human in broad daylight? These cats are usually more active at night. Is there something amiss with this animal? Not necessarily. While cougars prefer to hunt under cover of darkness, one reason they're so successful is that they're well prepared to ambush prey, night or day. But there may be an explanation for why this particular cat attacked Travis by day. SURFACE: Because it was a younger, juvenile lion that he encountered, they may actually be active during the day, because a lot of times, the mother, the adult lion, will be out hunting, so it's actually not that uncommon to see a younger, juvenile lion in the middle of the day. NARRATOR: As Travis and the young cat do battle, Travis feels like he's losing ground. TRAVIS: My wrist was still in its jaws. And its back legs were thrashing, its front paws were thrashing. And I was just watching the claws extend and retract, kind of over and over again, as I was deflecting them with my left hand. And just kind of really appreciating how big the cat's paws were, even though it was a young cat. NARRATOR: Mountain lions are relentless when they get hold of prey, and Travis is using everything within reach to fight it off. TRAVIS: I was reaching around and I was grabbing sticks and trying to poke it in the neck, stab it in the neck to get it to release. But unfortunately, the stick was just really rotten, and pretty much just splintered and disintegrated immediately, so I knew that those sticks weren't going to be too helpful in terms of helping detach the cat from me. NARRATOR: Travis moves on to plan B. TRAVIS: A couple feet away was a rock. It was pretty heavy, but I got my left hand on it, and then was able to get a couple blows in the back of its head with that rock. NARRATOR: Travis can't hit it hard enough to make it release his hand, and he worries things are about to get worse. TRAVIS: I was worried about mom coming around, because I could tell that it was a younger cat. So I was trying to get this thing off of me as quick as possible and get out as quickly as I could. NARRATOR: Will the mom cat come out of the woodlands and make short work of Travis? Uranium miner Fred Dejarlais also finds himself in an intense encounter with a wild animal-- a ferocious wolf. DEJARLAIS: I'm doing everything that I can think of to discourage him. I'm hollering, but he's progressing toward me. NARRATOR: Abruptly, the animal leaps. DEJARLAIS: And I don't know what happened, I just reacted. All I could hear was the snap of his teeth. NARRATOR: The miner fights for his life. Then, miraculously, his co-workers arrive. (yelling) Outnumbered, the wolf makes a run for it and vanishes into the wilderness. Dejarlais greets the new year with only minor wounds. But what made the wolf attack him? And was there anything in common with Kenton Carnegie's tragic death? Many violent incidents with wild wolves are the result of rabies. The virus attacks the animal's nervous system, making a normally reclusive creature extremely aggressive. Authorities kill the wolf who attacked Fred Dejarlais. But the necropsy shows no sign of rabies. Carnegie's killer is still at large, but it clearly isn't rabid either. His body was partially eaten. Animals suffering from rabies can't even drink water, much less eat solid food. Investigators have to consider other possibilities. GARY HAYNES: So the evening you were called out here, when you arrived... NARRATOR: Coroner Rosalie Tsannie-Burseth studies Carnegie's attack scene with Dr. Gary Haynes of the University of Nevada, Reno, an expert in predation kill sites. TSANNIE-BURSETH: This is, this is the site where the men told me they found the body here. So when I came on site, he was about a few feet down that way in between those trees. HAYNES: Could you actually see what had happened? Was there snow on the ground? Could you find tracks? It had snowed recently. It snowed at least five to six inches, so we found his footprints alongside the lake all the way. As you go along... NARRATOR: The fresh snow also reveals something else. TSANNIE-BURSETH: Over his tracks or right close to his tracks were a set of wolf tracks following him. NARRATOR: It appears Carnegie realized a wolf was trailing him, and he tried to get back to camp. TSANNIE-BURSETH: It seemed like he almost wanted to go onto the lake here, but he decided to turn around, go back this way. NARRATOR: What would make Carnegie turn around and head back towards the wolf who was stalking him? Did he find himself face to face with something even more terrifying? Travis Kauffman is locked in a life-or-death struggle with a juvenile mountain lion, and the cat's age could be key to understanding why it's treating Travis as prey. SURFACE: A lot of the attacks tend to be by younger lions that are still learning how to hunt. 'Cause they just don't have the strength to take down a full-grown deer. That age of lion is actually one of the most aggressive of all. PETERSBURG: It's more like a teenager, where he's big enough to get in trouble, but just hasn't had the life experience to know what could be real dangerous for it. NARRATOR: There's another reason young cougars are more tempted to tangle with people. Life is especially hard on the youngsters. Their mothers look after them for the first year or two, then send them off to fend for themselves. It's a difficult and precarious time for them. On average, only one in five kittens makes it to adulthood. They must feed themselves, but the hunting skills they've learned by watching their moms are far from honed, and some simply starve. Like many cats, cougars rely on stealth and camouflage to get them close to their quarry before they attack. This one crept within ten feet of Travis. PETERSBURG: Mountain lions are ambush predators. They are a lie-in-wait type of species, where they'll stalk. Most often they are in a place where they have a lot of concealment and they're on a main trail for game primarily. And they are really efficient predators. They're an apex predator. NARRATOR: They use a devastating attack technique that ensures a quick kill. PETERSBURG: They will generally attack the neck and the head area where they can crush a larynx, and then they will take an animal to the ground. NARRATOR: A cougar has one chance to immobilize prey with this devastating kill bite. Travis blocked the lethal bite, but he can't get the cat to release his hand. Desperate, he tries to suffocate it. TRAVIS: At that point, I was able to kind of get my foot up onto its neck, and then I sit on its neck for like a minute or so. I just wasn't sure that I was getting enough pressure on it to actually completely close the windpipe. So I thought it was one of those things that could potentially take forever, if not even work at all. NARRATOR: As Travis tries to subdue the cat, his adrenaline keeps him going, but how long can he continue to fight? In Canada, the autopsy of Kenton Carnegie's body confirms his death resulted from a bite to the neck, but it doesn't specify what animal killed him. Officials at the scene try to narrow down the suspects and determine how the crime played out. Photographs taken here two days after Carnegie's death suggest a terrifying scenario. Out on the lake are another set of wolf tracks heading right for Carnegie. If he was trapped by two wolves advancing from opposite directions, that could explain why he didn't know which way to turn. HAYNES: So a second wolf coming from the lake also approaching, which is not all that unusual, the way wolves will hunt is they spread out a bit when they see something that could be potentially challenged or tested, possible prey. They'll begin to cooperate. It's almost like coordinated attack. NARRATOR: Few carnivores hunt with such remarkable teamwork and intelligence as wolves. Working together, wolves will head off fleeing prey, use shortcuts to close distances, and even chase quarry into prearranged ambushes where fellow pack members lie in wait. Once they get hold of the animal, they attack it from all sides, and take turns wearing it down in a deadly tag-team match. They wouldn't have had to work very hard to wear down a human. Outnumbered, Kenton Carnegie's fate now seems sealed. But is it? Wolves often wait and watch a potential target to be sure it's prey and not a threat. HAYNES: Usually at this point, there isn't really an attack. It's, it's a challenge. TSANNIE-BURSETH: So what, what went wrong here? HAYNES: I, I don't know. Something very unusual must have happened here. Something must have triggered their attack at that point. NARRATOR: They find evidence of a powerful trigger written on the snow. When he turned around, his tracks seemed to be further apart, and this is where the scuffle began here. HAYNES: If the tracks are farther apart, it probably indicates he started running. When a predator sees a potential prey animal begin to run, it's a clear indication that this is either a scared or a very vulnerable animal. And that's, that's the point... So this is the point where he became prey to them? HAYNES: Yeah, I think so. Against these predators, there's nothing worse he could have done. (barking) Wolves are the marathoners of the animal kingdom. Topping 35 miles an hour, they can run miles on large paws that work like snowshoes. (squeal) Once Carnegie ran, there would have been no doubt how the race would end. (screaming) Did Travis' mountain lion also attack him because he was running? And if he manages to escape its grasp and run away, will that be a death sentence for him as it may have been for Kenton? NARRATOR: Travis Kauffman is in the grip of a young cougar, trying to make it release his hand. But why did it attack him in the first place? Could it be because Travis was running that the cougar saw him as prey? PETERSBURG: They have a chase instinct. And so while they're waiting for a prey item to come by, that instinct can be triggered really quickly, and then that instinct pushes them to want to chase or grab whatever that animal or person is. NARRATOR: Attacking a running target wouldn't present a problem for this athletic species of cat. Cougars' long, flexible spines make them impressive gymnasts. They can leap up to 45 feet in a single bound and jump 15 feet in the air. Their tails are two-thirds as long as their bodies, giving them acrobatic balance and control. Their running speed tops out somewhere between 30 and 50 miles per hour. And they're powerful. A puma that's leapt onto the back of an 800-pound elk can use its forelegs to snap the animal's neck. How can 150-pound Travis escape such a formidable killing machine? His foot is planted firmly on the animal's neck, knowing he has to kill or be killed. TRAVIS: Eventually I could see it start struggling to breathe and start thrashing. And then after another few minutes, it finally just stopped, and then its jaws opened up. I was able to get my wrist out. NARRATOR: But Travis' ordeal isn't over yet. TRAVIS: I started scrambling uphill to get out as quick as I possibly could and made it back up there, the trail, and looked back down to make sure that there wasn't going to be any threat of it coming back and following me again. And I saw it was still, and then so I started heading east on West Ridge Trail. Injured and exhausted, Travis still has a dangerous three-mile trek back down the mountain. TRAVIS: As I was running along West Ridge to get back on the Towers, it was mostly fear and adrenaline the whole time. I was just kind of spurting blood and slipping on an icy trail. And just very hyper-aware that this was prime mountain lion territory. SURFACE: Rocky outcroppings. Trees. Actually, when you think about a position of advantage, too, they're above the trail. We have game trails down there, which are used by deer and other wildlife. NARRATOR: Is there another cat just waiting for Travis to pass by? After a wild animal kills in Saskatchewan, investigators follow a trail with more twists and turns than a detective story to find his killer. (screams) A wolf attack seems like a plausible and chilling explanation, but it can't account for all the details of this tragedy. Certain facts suggest wolves may not have killed Carnegie after all. One is that his body was moved. TSANNIE-BURSETH: This is where we found the body. He was actually killed just down over in that direction. HAYNES: That's quite a distance. Something must have dragged him here after the original discovery. Do you think a pack of wolves would pull him out here? HAYNES: Probably not a pack, because they wouldn't be cooperating to pull him. When several wolves feed, they don't usually move their prey; they pull it apart on the spot. But this photograph taken the morning after Carnegie's attack shows wolves weren't the only wild animals here on the night he was killed. It reveals a set of much bigger tracks than a wolf's or a human's. It seems a bear was bounding across the frozen lake. If it was a bear that attacked Carnegie, it might explain why his body was moved. Unlike wolves, bears regularly drag their prey long distances, and a full-grown black bear could easily move a human across the uneven terrain. Did a bear kill The search party saw wolf tracks and heard their howls the night he was killed. But did a bear slip away silent, unnoticed and deadly? In Points North, Canada, experts investigating Kenton Carnegie's death are still uncertain whether he was killed by wolves or a bear. But they do know why both creatures were in the area that night. TSANNIE-BURSETH: I want to show you the landfill that's used by Points North. NARRATOR: Less than a mile from Carnegie's camp is an open dump. HAYNES: There's no fence to keep out animals, and it's burning and full of garbage, so the smell is probably being spread widely. And I would imagine every animal miles around here knows this is here and will be attracted to something like this. It looks like there's some wolf tracks out there, there's foxes and ravens. There may be bears attracted to a place like this. NARRATOR: When officials investigated the earlier attack on Fred Dejarlais, they discovered there was an electric fence to keep wolves away from the dump at his camp, and people were warned not to hand-feed the wolves. At Points North, the open dump remains an invitation for wild animals and trouble. HAYNES: They're being attracted to human settlement, to human beings themselves, and they lose their caution and their fear. TSANNIE-BURSETH: Their fear. HAYNES: Yeah. But that doesn't mean they're any less predatory. They are still dangerous, wild animals that in a moment can turn even deadly. NARRATOR: We'll probably never know which creature was responsible for Carnegie's demise. In Colorado, Travis runs down Horsetooth Mountain, watching for other lions hiding in the rocky outcroppings above the trail. TRAVIS: I had a bunch of adrenaline coursing through my body and was hypersensitive to any sound or movement that I, that I perceived. NARRATOR: What Travis sees on the ground, these actual cougar pawprints confirms what he fears from above. TRAVIS: There was a lot of cat tracks in that area. I was just still on high alert the whole time and really expecting to see anything kind of bound out of nowhere. NARRATOR: Did Travis escape one cat's clutches only to be attacked by another? Finally, he encounters a much more reassuring sight. SPENCER COX: So I was just working my way up the trail, when I looked up and saw another runner coming down, and immediately was taken aback. His face was completely red with blood. I noticed one of the puncture wounds in his shoulder. As soon as we saw each other, he called out to me. And then he immediately told me that he'd been attacked by a mountain lion. TRAVIS: When I finally saw Spencer running up, that's when I really felt like the whole situation had kind of come to a resolution a little bit. NARRATOR: Travis and Spencer run the last mile down the trail together and manage to get Travis to the hospital. These never-before-seen photos taken on Travis' cell phone show how badly injured he was. TRAVIS: I had 17 stitches along my cheek. So four were pretty deep down into the muscular tissue, and then another 13 superficially. And then I had another, let's see, six along the bridge of my nose. There was a pretty significant gash there. And then they threw another few in my wrist where the cat had latched on for the majority of the fight. NARRATOR: Late that day, wildlife officer Jason Surface investigates the scene of the attack. SURFACE: We were able to see the dead lion carcass on the ground. We collected the lion, brought it to our health lab. They do what's called a necropsy, which is essentially an autopsy. And fortunately, it came back negative on rabies. NARRATOR: The lion was male and weighed about 40 pounds. At only five months old, it was too young to be hunting alone. SURFACE: Typically, an adult mountain lion female will keep their young for over a year. Generally, the young are capable of surviving on their own in that nine-month range, but for the most part, yeah, they're going to keep them to that 14, 16-month time frame. NARRATOR: Why was such a young cat trying to fend for itself? When another ranger returns to the attack scene the next day, he finds what could be the answer. STEPHEN GIBSON: So I was walking, I had my GPS, I was looking down at it, and boom, I look up, and standing right over here next to this tree were two lions. NARRATOR: One immediately takes off, but the other sticks around, apparently unafraid. GIBSON: We kind of just stared at each other for probably about three to five minutes, and then I eventually took a picture of it and then let it run off. SURFACE: At that point we made the decision to see what else we had there. Did we have an entire lion family unit there? Was there anything else that we wanted to get information on? NARRATOR: The rangers put out trail cameras to find out. They capture these images, shown here for the first time. Then they catch the two young cats, a male and a female, in live traps. They're similar in size to the one that attacked Travis. The rangers determine they're its siblings, all too young to be on their own, raising the question of what became of their mom. PETERSBURG: Could she have disappeared? Could she have abandoned them? Could she have been killed? We don't know. But could that be a factor in whether or not these cats behaved the way they did? Certainly it could. NARRATOR: They bring the young cats to a wildlife rehabilitation center, where they'll learn the life skills mom would typically teach them. SURFACE: One of the big things is they have to teach them how to hunt, and the other big part of this is to instill and reinforce that healthy fear of humans. NARRATOR: In a few months, when they're retrained, the youngsters will get a second chance when rangers release them back to the wild. As for Travis, he's recovering well and still trail running, but his memory of the attack haunts him. TRAVIS: It was a very scary situation, and I did feel like my life was threatened. And I, I'm sad that, that a mountain lion had to die throughout the course of the fight, but I really didn't feel like there was any other recourse. News of his experience has captured the imaginations of people around the world. TRAVIS: I think that the reason why the story is so captivating is that it's a modern-day survival scenario. In nature, people can persevere and get through some difficult situations. SURFACE: It's almost a throwback story of man versus wild. In the 21st century, it's just not something we hear anymore. NARRATOR: When we venture into untamed domains or even shared spaces, every time we cross paths with wild creatures, there's the chance for a peaceful glimpse of an impressive predator, or a fight for our very lives. Captioned by Side Door Media Services