It's not the only such case. Ernest Thompson Seton recounted an incident that occurred with a very feisty and troublesome female black bear and a cat. The cat was also a female and had a litter of kittens which she was guarding at the time. The black bear was a local troublemaker, much noted for robbing garbage and beating up most of the other black bears. She arrived one day, followed by her half-grown cub, approached the front porch area of Seton's cabin, looking around for garbage, and encountered the mother cat and her kittens. The cat sprang up, puffed out all its fur, and commenced to spit and howl threats while the kittens scattered. The bear paused, momentarily shocked that this tiny animal would attempt to block its way, then lumbered forward confidently. As the bear drew closer the cat's howling heightened in pitch...and then the cat sprang full into the bear's face and, claws working furiously, made its way onto the back of the bear's neck! The bear gave a "whoof" of astonishment and reared up on its hind legs, trying to knock the cat off with its paws. This was to no avail. The cat, continuing to claw and bite madly, had made its way onto the bear's back where it was quite out of reach. The bear realized this in short order and rushed about here and there with the cat wreaking havoc on its back. The bear cub panicked and ran up a large tree, and the mother bear shortly decided to do the same thing. The cat jumped off the bear's back once it was some way up the tree, and, like this cat in the news report prowled around triumphantly at the bottom of the tree for the next 20 minutes, while the bears remained there, afraid to come down. Eventually Seton took pity on them and came and took the cat back to the cabin. Shortly after that the bears descended and rushed off into the forest, and following that incident they gave the cat a wide birth whenever they came around looking for garbage.

True story. An enraged cat loose on your back is enough to give any animal pause, I can assure you, and no one interferes with a mother cat and her kittens without paying the price.