I can't control my heart rate, I've got a cougar on me!

There is a cougar on the loose in the city of Seattle. If that isn't awesome then I don't know what is. It's been spotted in the Magnolia area, a neighborhood I grew up in.

Now most people who've never been to Seattle might think the entire city is 90 percent rainforest and that cougars are everywhere. Really it's the only explanation for all the flannel, right? Well that's not completely accurate. In the 6 years I lived in the Magnolia neighborhood I probably only saw about 4 or 5 cougars. Way less than I saw in the 10 years I lived in Ballard.

The important question here is should we start to panic or is this overblown nonsense like the swine flu? Here's what the Department of Wildlife has to say;

Cougar attacks on humans are extremely rare. In North America, roughly 25fatalities and 95 nonfatal attacks have been reported during the past 100 years. However, more cougar attacks have been reported in the western United States and Canada over the past 20 years than in the previous 80. In Washington, of the one fatal and fifteen nonfatal attacks reported here in the past 100 years, seven attacks occurred during the 1990s. A high percentage of cougars attacking domestic animals or people are one-to two-year-old cougars that have become independent of their mothers.

You read that? Cougar attacks are becoming more and more common. Really how long is it until we're at war with the cougars? This whole time I've been preparing for zombies but I've been ignoring the pending Cougapocalypse. I'm going to have to start expanding my zombie plan. When the cougars attack no amount of mountain dew is going to save my family.... or is it?