[GladesGuru]

“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.

[catnipman]

My point was that lions are not usually a gigantic danger when they wander into populated areas. Clearly lions can be dangerous animals, and they (and bears) do in fact get shot for being aggressive. A home-invading bear was just killed by a home owner yesterday. But most bears just steal a few apples and then move along. No particular reason to kill those bears.

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.

[george76]

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.