• last year
Mountain lion biologist Mark Elbroch rates nine big-cat attacks in movies for realism.

Elbroch breaks down tiger attacks and hunting behavior in "RRR" (2022), with N. T. Rama Rao Jr.; "The Hangover" (2009), featuring Bradley Cooper; and "Life of Pi" (2012). He looks at lion attacks in "The Lion King" (2019), with James Earl Jones, Donald Glover, and Beyoncé; and "Beast" (2022), starring Idris Elba. Elbroch explains mountain lion behavior and the accuracy of big-cat sounds in "Me Time" (2022), starring Kevin Hart; "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (2006), with Will Ferrell; and "The Bear" (1988). He also breaks down the jaguar attack and the reality of having big cats in captivity in "Jungle Cruise" (2021), with Dwayne Johnson.

Elbroch is the director of the puma program at Panthera and has been studying mountain lions — also called pumas and cougars — for 20 years. He has written and coauthored 10 books on natural history, including "The Cougar Conundrum."

You can learn more about Mark on his website:
​https://markelbroch.com/

You can find Mark's latest book here:
https://islandpress.org/books/cougar-conundrum

You can learn more about Panthera here:
https://panthera.org/cat/puma
Transcript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 It is worth noting that cats have really small lungs.
00:07 And if they fail to connect with that prey
00:09 and to take it down quickly, they give up.
00:12 So if you've got a long head start,
00:14 you're gonna outrun it.
00:15 My name's Mark Elbrock.
00:17 I've been studying mountain lions for 20 years,
00:19 and I've been lucky enough to also work
00:20 with African lions and leopards.
00:22 Today, we're gonna be looking at big cat attacks in movies
00:25 and judging how real they are.
00:28 (lion roaring)
00:31 Where they stand up to begin a wrestling is actually real.
00:40 African lions will do that when they engage in a fight,
00:43 especially over territory or rights to a pride.
00:46 Young lions actually challenge old lions.
00:49 That's totally real.
00:51 And that old lions almost always have a set of scars
00:56 on their face from these territorial disputes over time.
01:00 That's totally normal.
01:01 To see an old lion without any scars
01:04 means that lion has been bred in captivity.
01:06 The swiping of the paws,
01:10 all of that sort of rapid violence is very real.
01:15 I would just point out too that the skin of cats,
01:19 when you see them, they often look loose.
01:21 They're swiping with these weapons,
01:25 these claws that can dig in an inch or more,
01:27 and that loose skin is protecting them.
01:30 The big mane is protecting them.
01:32 So that all is defenses to allow them
01:35 to have these violent exchanges.
01:38 There was a moment there where you saw one go onto his back.
01:45 That's really normal.
01:46 A cat in a defensive posture will start to go onto its back
01:50 to have four weapons pointing up.
01:52 They are devastating.
01:53 Because now if a competitor comes on top of them,
01:57 they just shred their underbelly with all the vital organs.
02:00 It's amazing to have that much realism in a cartoon.
02:04 So I'm gonna give this thing an eight.
02:06 [lion growling]
02:08 This is a pet animal, a pet tiger.
02:13 There are more tigers in captivity in the US alone
02:18 than there are wild tigers in the entire world.
02:21 And that's just a crazy thing to ponder.
02:23 The ears were forward.
02:25 You always watch the ears of cats.
02:27 And so this was not a threatened animal.
02:29 It wasn't an agitated animal.
02:30 It was just chilling.
02:32 - This does not seem fair.
02:33 - It's rock, paper, scissors.
02:36 Nothing more fair.
02:37 - Interesting idea to try to drug the tiger.
02:39 In fact, I know people who have tried this on wild animals.
02:43 They use syringes and load them up with drugs.
02:46 I've seen that work in the field.
02:49 So that's real.
02:50 I mean, real-ish, but depending what they're giving it.
02:53 [gunshot]
02:54 [man screaming]
02:55 [gunshot]
02:56 [man screaming]
02:57 - Oh my God.
02:57 - When you saw the tiger chewing on the seat,
03:00 we call those displacement behaviors.
03:02 A lot of captive animals exhibit sort of stress
03:05 in different ways.
03:06 And so they'll bite things, they'll claw things.
03:09 You know, I'm gonna give this movie a five.
03:12 [lion growling]
03:17 Note the pattern here, that there's sort of black squares
03:21 with dots in them.
03:23 And that's really important to identifying a jaguar
03:27 and differentiating it from a leopard,
03:29 which has no black dots in the middle.
03:31 [lion growling]
03:33 I've seen this movie, so I know the context of it.
03:40 And so I know that the jaguar is a pet.
03:42 The owner has trained this cat to engage
03:46 in wrestling matches.
03:47 Would a jaguar wander into a bar to get a raw steak
03:52 or to engage people?
03:53 Absolutely not.
03:54 In fact, jaguars, among all the big cats,
03:58 have the least records of attacking people in the wild.
04:03 It's almost unheard of.
04:06 [lion growling]
04:08 If that were a real fight and the jaguar
04:12 were truly to bite down,
04:14 it could quite literally bite through his arm.
04:17 They have tremendous biting power
04:20 as compared to other cats of similar size.
04:22 [lion growling]
04:25 - I'm going to pet you now,
04:26 and you're not going to eat me, understood?
04:29 - You know, Hollywood loves its noises.
04:31 And in this case, it has the jaguar purring.
04:34 Jaguars can roar, but they cannot purr.
04:37 So that, of course, is completely unrealistic.
04:40 I'm gonna give this a four.
04:43 It's got tremendous comedy and poor natural history.
04:46 - Hey, buddy.
04:47 Oh, you're a little scary kitty, huh?
04:51 - That's a real mountain lion kitten.
04:52 All cats are born with blue eyes.
04:55 The pigments haven't started to develop in their eyes yet.
04:58 You can see this kitten has been handled plenty.
05:01 It's not agitated.
05:02 Its ears are forward.
05:04 To me, I would call that a smiling kitty.
05:06 [lion growling]
05:09 Mountain lions can't roar,
05:11 so they were often considered the largest of the small cats.
05:15 An agitated mountain lion would be hissing.
05:18 They go, "Hiss."
05:19 And then they'll snort,
05:21 like as they pull the air back in to hiss again.
05:23 They'll go, "Hiss," and go, "Hiss."
05:26 Oh, my God.
05:26 [lion growling]
05:28 - Help!
05:30 - This is one of the first clips
05:32 in which we've seen a cat drop its head
05:36 and lower the front half of its body.
05:38 And that's exactly what a wild cat does
05:42 when it is preparing to pounce.
05:43 What would a mountain lion really do
05:46 if it was defending its kittens?
05:48 It's all about luster.
05:50 They'll false charge you.
05:51 They make noise.
05:52 It would be an incredibly rare thing
05:56 that they would actually make contact
05:58 because in a fight, they are vulnerable.
06:01 And the best thing for the safety of their own kittens
06:04 is to stay alive.
06:06 - Oh, what?
06:07 Oh, my God.
06:08 [lion growling]
06:10 - I mean, there's so much to talk about.
06:13 The cat's enormous to Kevin.
06:14 And I know Kevin Hart is not a huge man.
06:18 So a typical female, especially in Southern California,
06:20 is gonna be like 80 pounds.
06:22 That cat is huge compared to what it should be.
06:25 [lion growling]
06:27 - Oh, my God.
06:28 Oh, my God.
06:29 - How she even dropped to the ground
06:31 and let go of him is totally not mountain lion.
06:35 When a cat attaches to something it's attacking,
06:38 they do not let go.
06:40 Like, they are attached.
06:42 And they'll go down with their prey.
06:43 They've actually been seen rolling off mountains
06:47 attached to a bighorn sheep or some other prey
06:50 and rolling together.
06:52 [lion growling]
06:55 - The jugular!
06:55 [lion growling]
06:57 - Is that an EpiPen?
06:58 He's not jabbing it in the jugular.
07:00 He's jabbing it in the shoulder,
07:03 which would be the least effective form of defense.
07:07 The neck would have been good, or the eye.
07:09 People often recommend if a cat is actually attacking you,
07:12 go for the eye.
07:13 I'm gonna give this one a five.
07:17 [lion growling]
07:18 [man screaming]
07:21 African lions, the largest ones,
07:24 are almost as large as the largest tigers.
07:27 There are records of up to 600 pounds.
07:29 But they exhibit extreme dimorphism.
07:32 And that's a fancy word for saying the males
07:35 are a lot bigger than the females.
07:37 When I've been in the field and confronted a lion,
07:40 when they stand up, their eyes are essentially
07:44 even with your chest, which is incredibly intimidating.
07:48 [lion growling]
07:51 This is hard to watch.
07:53 This reminds me of, is it the "Revenant"
07:56 that had Leonardo DiCaprio?
07:58 That bear scene was just brutal, like, in its ferocity.
08:01 And this is, I mean, this is the most realistic attack
08:04 we've seen.
08:05 It is on its back.
08:07 They often go for the spine, you know, big cats,
08:10 when they're attacking any kind of prey.
08:11 And you notice this lion is biting a lot.
08:14 We haven't seen that in these other clips.
08:15 Lots of clawing, which, as I talked about,
08:18 is more about wounding.
08:20 This is a lion going for a kill.
08:22 This clip is as real as it gets.
08:24 I'm gonna give it a solid eight.
08:26 And it loses two points in just the impact
08:30 on the person who was at the receiving end.
08:33 You know, the devastation of that attack
08:35 would have been lethal.
08:37 [lion growling]
08:38 [man screaming]
08:39 [lion growling]
08:40 - What the hell?
08:41 - But if you're scared, that beautiful death machine
08:44 will do what God made it to do.
08:46 - This part of that clip is actually real.
08:50 You know, that if you keep showing fear to a mountain lion
08:54 or to another big cat, you're setting yourself up
08:57 for a potentially dangerous situation.
08:59 You never wanna give a cat the opportunity
09:02 to what I call gain momentum.
09:04 They'll become bolder.
09:06 And they'll continue to do whatever they're doing
09:09 to make you afraid.
09:10 Most folks will recommend you take two fast steps towards it.
09:13 Like you step towards it, and I'll clap.
09:15 I'll stamp my feet.
09:17 I'll be loud.
09:18 I'll be aggressive.
09:20 And they'll usually just be like, "Whoa."
09:22 And then they'll leave.
09:24 - God, he's just following me wherever I go.
09:25 - Well. - He's looking at you.
09:26 - That's actually a really cool thing to talk about
09:29 because cats lock on their prey.
09:33 To get them to break that focal lock is really important
09:37 if you were to ever be in an encounter with a big cat,
09:40 which you can do by yelling, screaming,
09:43 doing something surprising.
09:44 - Hey, here we go.
09:45 I'm getting in.
09:46 [cat growling]
09:47 [man screaming]
09:49 - The sound at the end, that [imitates cat growling]
09:52 It's so funny 'cause it's the ringtone on my phone.
09:55 Because that is one of the most overused,
09:58 popular sounds of mountain lions.
10:01 I love the fact they talked about fear.
10:03 We'll give it a six.
10:04 [cat growling]
10:07 The greatest problem with Hollywood cat attacks
10:14 are the noises.
10:15 First off, cats are completely silent when they're hunting.
10:18 Don't let your prey know you're coming.
10:21 [cat growling]
10:23 When that tiger emerges and hits the wolf,
10:27 that's actually a really important thing
10:28 to note about cat hunting,
10:30 is that they use their bodies,
10:32 not just their claws and their teeth.
10:35 Sometimes if they can get enough power behind themselves,
10:38 just their weight alone can break the neck of an animal.
10:41 [dramatic music]
10:44 You should never run.
10:46 That's like triggering the prey response
10:49 in a large carnivore.
10:51 You wanna confront a large cat that is confronting you.
10:54 If it's threatening you, you wanna scare it.
10:57 But let's just assume that you're running.
11:00 You know, you've made that decision.
11:02 It is worth noting that cats have really small lungs
11:05 and that they have these short bursts.
11:07 That's why they're explosive when they hunt.
11:09 And if they fail to connect with that prey
11:11 and to take it down quickly, they give up.
11:14 So if you've got a long head start
11:17 and you can get that cat to run for, you know,
11:20 half mile or so, yeah, you're gonna outrun it
11:23 because humans are actually built for marathon runs.
11:27 [dramatic music]
11:30 [man groaning]
11:32 There's no way he could stand up
11:34 to being clawed several times.
11:36 So cat claws are protractable.
11:39 And that means that when the cat is relaxed,
11:41 they're actually sheathed.
11:42 You don't see the claws.
11:44 And that keeps them razor sharp
11:46 so that when they capture prey or swipe prey,
11:50 they immediately cut in and cut lacerations
11:54 like sharp knives.
11:55 Just one swipe of a tiger's claw
11:59 would completely debilitate this guy.
12:02 I'm gonna give this one a seven.
12:06 - Come on!
12:07 [woman screaming]
12:07 Come on!
12:09 Come on!
12:10 [tiger roaring]
12:13 - Will a tiger defend food from a potential scavenger?
12:18 Absolutely.
12:20 And lions too, and mountain lions too,
12:23 and leopards too.
12:25 They'll all do that.
12:26 [tiger growling]
12:28 It has the tiger's ears out to the side.
12:33 And that is an uncomfortable animal.
12:36 That is an agitated animal.
12:38 It is telling the world in every way
12:40 that it is very unhappy with its current situation.
12:44 [tiger growling]
12:47 Pi takes to water for safety, right?
12:53 He leaps off the boat.
12:54 And if the tiger were locked on him,
12:57 like truly hunting him,
12:59 that probably wouldn't have saved him
13:00 because tigers swim and swim quite well.
13:03 But in this case, as I mentioned,
13:06 the tiger didn't seem to be locked on him.
13:08 I'm gonna give this clip an eight
13:11 because the CGI is amazing.
13:14 [tiger roaring]
13:17 That could happen.
13:21 I've seen mountain lions kill bear cubs
13:24 on a couple of occasions.
13:26 In terms of like how it would hunt in open terrain,
13:29 you know, the most similar sort of scenario I've seen
13:32 is in the far South out in the Patagonia grasslands.
13:34 And a mountain lion would be down low
13:37 using every bit of grass or rock
13:40 to get as close as possible.
13:42 They wouldn't betray their presence.
13:44 Now, if they thought that prey was totally vulnerable,
13:47 which a young bear might be,
13:50 then sure, you'll see cats nonchalantly approach
13:54 prey that cannot get away.
13:56 We can appreciate this as an actual mountain lion,
14:03 but that this is a cat that is clearly uncomfortable
14:06 and is not as hunting.
14:07 [bear roaring]
14:10 Would a mountain lion confronted with an adult brown bear
14:19 turn and flee?
14:20 Absolutely.
14:22 Mountain lions will always choose the exit
14:25 rather than engage unless they're cornered.
14:28 And that gets me a little bit
14:29 to talk about the habitat here.
14:31 It's totally open.
14:33 There's hardly any trees.
14:35 It's a lot of rock.
14:36 This is actually not great cat habitat,
14:40 at least in the North where you have brown bears,
14:43 because this is the domain of wolves
14:47 and wolves always have the upper hand in the open.
14:51 And so cats, when you look at their distribution
14:54 across North America,
14:55 they're almost never found in these wide open areas.
14:59 So we've got real mountain lions, real bears.
15:02 I'm still gonna give it a seven.
15:05 Because the open terrain doesn't really match.
15:08 My favorite big cat attack scene from today
15:12 would be from "Me Time."
15:13 Part of my enjoyment of that clip
15:15 was how poorly it was done in terms of CGI
15:19 and the interaction between Kevin Hart's character
15:23 and the actual mountain lion.
15:24 [gentle music]
15:28 [gentle music continues]
15:31 (upbeat music)
15:34 (upbeat music)

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