M Q wrote:

With a mountain lion, you are strange enough that he is not sure
whether you are his dinner, or he is your dinner.
If you run from him, you have just told him.

Good point.

I just read a story about a senior couple who found a bobcat with a litter
of two under the hedge in their (large) backyard.

Each evening the couple sit in their backyard and, from a distance, watch
the two cubs growing up. Momma bobcat is well aware of the people but, as
long as they keep a respectful distance, doesn't seem to mind too much.
That, and the raw chicken the couple leave for the critters.