My obsession started in the year 2012. I was in Ms. O’Connor’s fourth grade class and to describe my years during elementary school, the words I would use to describe them would be “energizing and curious,” due to my constant high energy (which is still shown today at times) and my constant need to ask questions. I wanted to learn about anything and everything. This characteristic made one choice one of the toughest tasks I have ever faced in my life. The choice being, what will my animal research project topic be? I knew i was interested in wild cats like jaguars and leopards, but one day, the perfect choice was made. The choice was picking the cougar.

The first thing that caught my eye about cougars was the physical attributes of them. Males can be up to 200 lbs., with their speed possibly topping out at 50 MPH. An animal that can weigh more than the average man and can run around two times faster than anyone in the world interested me instantly. The shows how forceful, yet agile, these animals are. Another thing that caught my eye about its appearance is the animal’s height. Ranging from 2-3 feet, a cougar’s size means lots. Animals who have tons of confidence and courage tend to be bigger in size, so the size of the animal determines the way it lives its life.

One of the more interesting things that I didn’t know about until a few years after the project was that every cougar has claws that retreat inside the cougar’s hands until they are released, being used when attacking and killing prey. I thought this was so cool because it is almost like the cat’s hidden weapon, which would seem very helpful. They would be out of the way until you need it. That’s something that humans are incapable of doing, so I thought that was such an extraordinary characteristic.

Since 2012, I have been able to say that my favorite animal is a cougar. The importance of a cougar in my life is very substantial, due to the characteristics that a cougar holds that I also wish to obtain. A cougar’s balance of courage, ferocity, and leadership is also a balance that I would like to obtain. As time goes on and my love for cougars grows, I hope that their characteristics rub off on me.