Mountain biker has a stand-off with a cougar in Orange County, California. Check out this Kent Brockman-tastic American news video.

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Eric Motch was mountain biking at dusk on the Serrano Cow Trail in the Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park when he encountered a cougar. Motch shielded himself with his bicycle as the cougar, only about 10 feet away, didn’t seem overly interested in moving on.

Motch said: “I thought for sure I was going to fight a mountain lion and there was a chance I wasn’t going to survive”

“He came out of the tree on the embankment and jumped into the trail probably 10 feet in front of me. I just instinctively picked up my bike.”

“I started screaming and yelling for people. I was yelling at it to go away, it was looking at me, staring at me, starting to walk toward me.”

Eventually the cougar wandered off.

“It was not scared of me at all, it kept coming toward me, it wanted me to know that it was there,” Motch said.

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This incident comes some twelve years after a cyclist was killed by a mountain lion in the same area.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife say that big cat sightings are not uncommon but the animals usually avoid humans.

“I don’t think I’m going to go up there by myself, not for a while. That’s for sure,” Motch concluded.