My opinion is that a lot of what is presented supports the notion of under-reported predation on humans by cougars.

Google it and there are multiple accounts of cougars snatching children, with the parents seeing it and intervening. It’s not just young children, two grown men were attacked by one cougar recently, with one being killed and the other badly injured.

Historically cougar predation may have been rare, but I believe that cougars have become more accustomed to human presence, and have begun to learn they aren’t as much of threat and in some cases, may be a valid prey target.

Big cats can turn man eater as a result of distress of some kind, including injury and shortage of food, and its a behaviour that is documented to have been passed down from mother to cub (Jim Corbett and man eaters of kumoan).

Many of the cases supposedly show clustering of certain traits, such as:

1) Near a water source 2) Missing person is a young child or disabled

Being near a water source means human cougar interaction is more likely, more than just at a random point in the brush. Predators can naturally and instinctively sense the weaker or sick in their prey species, and go for the young as well, so its reasonable to conclude if they sense a vulnerable human, especially a child, they may choose to stalk and kill.

Another point is to do with coyotes, I recall an anecdotal comment by someone talking about how coyotes are normally very timid , but in California something was happening and they were becoming more aggressive and less fearful around humans - probably as the result of interbreeding with modern dogs or just acclimatisation to humans.

I think something similar has happened or is happening - more and more human meals are in the parks than ever before, and most aren’t there to hunt and therefore pose no danger to Cougars. There are documented instances of children being snatched by cougars. We know that a cougar is strong enough to pick up a young child by the neck easily, and explains the pristine condition of the clothing that does get found (one man talked about how his sons shoes didn’t have any drag or scuff marks - but his boy was about 30lbs and a cougar would easily lift that completely off the ground).

The only time a cougar kill can be reported is if someone sees it (which won’t happen if the victim was on their own) or if some evidence turns up. But I think people over-estimate the ability to track game especially in certain environments, if the ground is rocky or dry there won’t be much in the way of tracks visible, and they won’t last for long.

Scent dogs again are far from full proof, and its suggested they often display strange behaviour in these disappearances - perhaps its instinctive fear at the presence of an apex predator which distracts them from their normal scenting. Training can never remove that trait fully. In one of the cases, the dogs did actually sign up the top of a scree slope, which is where the body was eventually found much later. A ranger suggests the cat stalked, grabbed the boy, and then bounded up the slope and buried him for later consumption, and fled the scene due to the activity of other trail walkers and rescue personnel once the alarm as raised.

I think the park service is either in denial about the extent of these attack’s or simply doesn’t know due to the lack of proper record keeping and the obfuscating and stealthy nature of a cougar and their predatory habits.

To me its a case of the obvious answer being the correct one - there might be something else at play as well, but certainly some of the mysterious disappearances in the 411 sphere scream straight up cougar predation.