Just watched two videos last night from hikers who came across cougars or mountain lions. Both of them would back away from the animal, doing their best to never turn their head, shouting or talking to it telling it to leave them alone or "fuck off" as one guy kept repeating.

Cats are ambush hunters: they'll stalk you and attack when you've taken your eyes off them. The guy narrating the video even mentioned that once you've taken your eyes off the cat but it's still staring at you, instinctively it will attack because it has deemed you are now food. One of the videos showcased this, as the guy telling it to fuck off turned his head from a moment (literally) to make sure he wouldn't trip, and the camera goes back to the cat having covered a 20 ft distance in the blink of an eye, skidding to a halt because its "prey" was looking at it again. He ended up scaring it off with a rock.

This is why folks in places like Africa and India will wear those masks on the back of their heads with painted eyes and faces on them: big cats are much less likely to attack if they think they're being watched by their prey. It's nuts, and makes me glad they're not common in my neck of the woods. We just have black bears, mostly, and they're easier to scare off unless they've got cubs.