Learning to coexist with the animals, as the article mentioned, is probably the best approach. I once read an article about tiger attacks in India and a brilli

Learning to coexist with the animals, as the article mentioned, is probably the best approach. I once read an article about tiger attacks in India and a brilliant tactic people developed: wearing a mask on the back of the head. Cats are ambush predators and will attack from behind. Apparently having a "face" on the back of your head is a good deterrent against cat attacks. Growing up near Glacier Park, we were given a great deal of wilderness survival instruction starting in elementary school (this was back in the '70s and '80s). I spent a fair bit of time tramping through the woods alone as a child, making noise so as not to startle the bears as taught. When I did occasionally come upon a bear, it wasn't fussed and continued on doing what it was doing. The odd report of a mauling elicited sympathy but there seemed to be a tacit assumption that the poor fellow screwed up somehow. In all that time, I never so much as caught a glimpse of a cat, though they were surely around. Predators getting used to humans happens when they come to depend on humans. Glacier Park learned from the "Night of the Grizzly" episode by keeping the bears out of food waste and considering feeding the bears a serious no-no. Animals that were unable or unwilling to return to their normal survival strategies were relocated or put down, though the major change was educating people and changing their behaviors. However, if you've got big cats in your backyard, I imagine that population is already stressed.