Posted on 06/17/2009 6:25:54 AM PDT by george76
A young mountain lion was trapped and relocated by the Colorado Division of Wildlife after eating a house cat Monday ... north Boulder.
“He was just too close,” Churchill said. “We wanted to give him a spanking and move him out of town.”
Wildlife officials previously tagged the same cougar in February when the kitten was stuck in a tree, Churchill said.
He is part of the five-year Front Range Mountain Lion Study, which aims to track mountain lions between Lyons and Evergreen to better understand cougar movement trends and develop a way to mitigate aggressive behavior near human establishments, Churchill said. In 2007 and 2008, 18 cougars were captured and are now being tracked.
Still, there's no guarantee the lion won’t return, Churchill said.
“Some just like to keep coming back,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycamera.com ...
You’re very welcome.
How are you?
Life treating you well?
I only went to a hippie smelling festival once...a long time ago.
I live a few miles from where this incident occurred, but in a more rural situation. Boulder and myself are located at the very eastern edge of the start of the Rocky Mountains, so interaction between humans and wildlife is ongoing and not the least bit unusual. These kinds of mountain lion and bear escapades are so frequent, that their reports are considered to be “on the lighter side”. Better even than fires and shootings as far as the local TV stations are concerned.
In my own neighborhood, we have at least one bear that shows up every autumn to feast in the apple trees on my street. In fact, we now have a nationally famous cow that just chased an apple-eating bear out of her back yard last August. The cow is named “Apple” because she loves to eat apples, and the bear was dining in her favorite apple tree. Just last week, three Chihuahuas cornered a lion in a garage a few miles away and DOW had to be called to rescue the lion and move it back into the wild.
A few years ago, I raised my bedroom blinds and a massive cow elk was staring into my window. The bad thing was she was wrecking my landscaping and I would charge her with my car to try to run her off, but she would just STEP over my back fence and then come back when I parked the car.
Yes, we do lose a few pets to lions, but we also lose even more to foxes and coyotes, which are even more numerous. The lesson here is that the pet owners are the ones at fault for not taking proper care of their pets. I never let my kitties out at night, and I closely supervise any brief daytime outdoor visits, as two rabid bats have been detected across the street during the last 3 years, and a skunk with distemper had to be shot next door by a Boulder County Sheriffs Deputy a few years ago.
In general, lions and bears are not a threat to us. There's been only two fatal attacks by lions in Colorado since I moved here in 1975. Both occurred in the mountains (not here on the plains) when people were unknowingly attacked from behind while walking ALONE on trails.
Most encounters are brief and the animal quickly moves along. Relocations occur only if the animal gets cornered or confused and can't find their way home. DOW is called and they inspect, tag, and relocate the animal. BTW, there's a 3-strikes rules, and the third time an animal has to relocated, it is considered incorrigible and is automatically killed.
Oh, and with such abundant wildlife, hunting is a big-bucks industry in Colorado and we have a very welcoming environment for out-of-state hunters. DOW also manages all aspects of licensed hunting in Colorado and they happen to be one of the better-managed parts of our state government. DOW is a very hunter-friendly organization, and they do a great job in managing all the various aspects of wildlife in Colorado.
And no, I don't work for DOW or have any relatives that do.
I just don't like to see ignorant comments about where I live.
Ahh yes and we like to see informed comments.
Just last week, three Chihuahuas cornered a lion in a garage a few miles away and DOW had to be called to rescue the lion and move it back into the wild.
Do you live in CO or southern CA because three Chihuahuas cornered a cougar in southern CA and Fish & Game killed the cougar, or were there two incidents?
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v489/gorush/?action=view¤t=mountaingoatshunting.flv
“Both occurred in the mountains (not here on the plains) when people were unknowingly attacked from behind while walking ALONE on trails.”
I am sure that line is a great comfort to the father whose boy was jerked out of his hand as they hiked with a group of people on a trail above Boulder.
When cats are not afraid of humans, they begin to sample them for caloric content, taste, ease of acquisition, etc.
Gunpowder, and only gunpowder, keeps beasts at bay.
And it makes zero sense to just run out and try and kill all the wild animals willy nilly just because two people get killed in a 35 year period. For one thing, the deer population around here would explode even worse than they have already if all the lions were killed, and even now, far more people are killed in Colorado in auto collisions with deer on the road at night than have been killed by lions. Now that I think about it, probably all the deer should be killed too.
Actually, I meant California, not Colorado.
Okay, you meant CA and also that it was a few hundred miles away and it was CA Fish & Game and not DOW and it was killed instead of being put back into the wild. I think I've got it now.
Colorado - January 1991 18 year old Scott Lancaster boy killed while jogging on his high school track in Idaho Springs.
Colorado - October 1999, 3 year old missing boys remains found and evidence suggests killed by Mountain Lion.
Colorado - July 1997, 10 year old Mark Miedema, of Lakewood was killed by an adult female cougar while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park when he got ahead of his family.
Photographer Moses Street was jogging on a popular trail in Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park, CO, when he glanced over his shoulder and saw a cougar about to pounce on him. The cougar backed off when Street yelled and waved his arms. Street used a large tree branch to stop a second and third attack.
Street climbed a tree and had to keep using the branch to keep the lion from advancing up the tree. Park Rangers rescued him after Street’s girlfriend alerted them. (Washington Post, 7/13/97, A01)
1997
14 July. A 4-year-old French boy was attacked by a lion at Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. The lion had previously been seen approaching people, and was killed.
20 October. A 20-year-old mountain bike rider was attacked by a cougar at Walker Ranch Open Space near Flagstaff Mountain, in the hills west of Boulder, Colorado. The lion lunged and “took a swipe” at him, then stopped and snarled with its ears laid back. The biker used his bike to protect him until the lion backed off. However, as the man continued slowly down the trail, the lion followed him
1998
28 April. Andy Peterson, 24, an experienced hiker from Littleton, was attacked in Roxborough State Park, Colorado, while hiking alone in the 3,000 acre park on the Carpenter Peak trail about 2 to 3 miles west of the visitor center.
The hiker came upon the lion... A 30 minute standoff ended when the lion attacked as the hiker attempted to “retreat up the trail”. The lion retreated after it was stabbed once with the 3” blade of a Swiss army knife, attacked again, and then left after the hiker “jabbed his thumb in the lion’s eye”. The hiker received deep cuts to his head and face, and was hospitalized .
(Denver Post, 5/1/98, B-01; 5/6/98, B-03)
22 July. Before sundown, Ranger Jeff Thompson in the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness within the Leadville, Colorado, Ranger District, was stalked by 4 cougars on Rich Creek Trail, with one of them charging him and grabbing his sleeping bag that he used to make himself look larger.
He had hung his food in a tree at least 200 feet away from his tent after dinner at about 5:45 p.m. and gone into his tent early because the bugs were so thick. He was reading a book when he heard some noises that were not loud enough to alarm him. But he stopped reading 3 or 4 times and would listen for about 5 seconds. Finally he heard a noise that made him scramble for his tent zipper and look out. He saw a cougar approximately 10 feet in front of him. Realizing laying down in a tent was not a good situation, he calmly and slowly stood up. He tried to make no sudden movements, and he did not look it in the eyes.
Once he stood up, he saw 3 more mountain lions, 1 to his left and 2 to his right behind a couple of trees about 30 feet away. He knew he should try to look big, so he reached down and grabbed his sleeping bag and raised it into the air. His shovel was leaning on a fallen tree about 5 feet behind him, so he also backed up to grab that. He made noise banging the shovel on a rock, and 2 of the lions slowly walked away. Another one ran towards him. The lion that ran at him grabbed his sleeping bag out of his hand, damaging the bag. He took the shovel and struck the lion on the back. The lion then scurried away to meet the other lions which were heading for some thicker trees about 100 feet away.
After they went in to the trees, he began to pack up. He decided to leave some gear and especially to leave his food hanging in the distant tree in order to move quickly and get out of there. As he started down to the trail, 3 of the lions came bounding down the hill to follow him. He made a lot of noise to try to scare them away, but it didn’t seem to bother them. Thompson then decided to call for his partner on the radio to make him aware. He was camped in the Mount Massive Wilderness and had already turned his radio off for the evening. Thompson then called for anyone out there, and John Markalunas came back and offered any support he could, including a helicopter.
After about 20 minutes of being followed, he crossed a creek and waited to see if they would cross with him. When he didn’t see them for a couple minutes, nervous because he was running out of light, he started to run for the trail head. Once he started to run, he made significant distance and got back to the truck just as the light was fading away. He called Pueblo, Colorado, dispatch from the truck
I remember that; a woman in California had gotten eaten too, I think in Placer or Eldorado county.
2005
Are you trying to hijack this thread? ;o)
When did he change his jockies?
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