Small Wild Cats

[brotherbear]

Great Soul of Siberia by Sooyong Park - 2015.
Along with the leopard and the tiger, the Siberian lynx is one of the three large cats of Northeast Asia. It's the smallest of the three, weighing a maximum of about thirty-kilograms, but also the fiercest. An Udege hunter named Tipui once saw a lynx kill a Manchurian red deer ten times its size. He told me the story.
One autumn, during the Manchurian red deer mating season, Tipui had been hiding near a deer trail when a medium-sized lynx came along. The lynx took a running start, sprung off the ground, and clung to the trunk of a Siberian dwarf pine with its sharp claws. It climbed the tree, scratching the bark with its claws on the way up, and hid itself among the trees branches that extended above the deer trail. After a long wait, a herd of Manchurian red deer, each about the size of a horse, came along. The lynx jumped down onto the back of a deer. The deer jerked about, trying to get the lynx off its back. But the lynx had a firm grip on its prey, using its sharp claws to dig into the flesh, and no amount of jerking or kicking made the slightest difference. The lynx rode the deer like a rodeo cowboy, and when the exhausted deer paused for a second, the lynx sunk its fangs into the deer's neck. It clung to the deer's throat for thirty minutes. 
In the end, the deer gave in, even though it was nearly ten times bigger than the lynx. When the deer hit the ground, the lynx clamped down on the throat and shook even harder to finish off the job. Only when the deer was completely still did the lynx let go and raise its head. The gray fur on its intense face was stained red. Tipui said the lynx must have been exhausted, too, because it took a long nap afterward, using the deer as a pillow. Reply