Least dangerous big cat to humans

The least dangerous species of big cat to humans is the snow leopard Panthera uncia of eastern Russia, Nepal, Bhutan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and several other eastern Asian countries. Only two attacks upon humans by this species have been confirmed. One of these featured a savage attack on two people together by a rabid snow leopard in broad daylight in Maloalmaatinsk gorge near Kazakhstan's former capital city, Almaty, on 12 July 1940. In the other incident, occurring in winter and once again not far from Almaty, an old, toothless, emaciated snow leopard, clearly starving and ill, unsuccessfully attempted to attack a passer-by but was captured alive.

Although the jaguar P. onca is known to attack people, cases of jaguar man-eaters are extremely rare, unlike in leopards, tigers and lions. Similarly, although jaguars and pumas share habitats in various parts of South America, these two very large cat species actively avoid one another whenever possible, with the jaguar preferring wet habitats and the puma drier ones. So big cats are not always as actively aggressive as is often mistakenly assumed in media reports and other non-scientific sources of information.