Mountain Lion Attacks, One Fatal, in Colorado Parks
A 10-year old boy was attacked and killed by a mountain lion Puma concolor in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park while on a family hike in July, while a boy from France was attacked in Mesa Verde National Park.
Mark David Miedema was walking ahead of his parents, who did not see the attack, in Rocky Mountain NP. rounding a corner of the trail they saw their son lying with his head in the lion's mouth.
Mark's parents scared the cat away and Kathy Miedema tried to revive her son while a fellow hiker called for help.
Wildlife trackers, aided by a team of dogs, shot and killed the 40 kg cougar when it returned to the scene of the attack a couple of hours later.
Park spokesman Doug Caldwell said: "What we think may have happened - and this is pure theory - is that, unfortunately, Mark came along at the wrong time, when the lion was in a hunting mode.
Mountain lions don't distinguish between humans and deer."
on 14 January 1991, when a high school student was attacked and killed while jogging near Idaho Springs.
Caldwell said the attack occurred on 17 July in the same general area as the park's last two mountain lion encounters.
In 1996, a female park employee was attacked near there while jogging. In 1995, a photographer in the western part of the park was treed by a mountain lion.
when they were hunted regularly, they had a good reason to fear us. Now they don't," ...
http://www.bigcats.org/abc/attacks/colorado1.html
Woman attacked by mountain lion
DURANGO (AP) - A woman scratched by a mountain lion while sitting in her backyard is recovering and undergoing rabies treatment.
"The wounds inside are still healing," said Annette Hayes said. "I'm nervous because I still have to walk the dog at night and let the puppy out at 6 a.m. when it's dark."
Hayes and her husband, David, were sitting on their hillside deck overlooking the Animas River the night of Aug. 8 when she felt weight on her shoulders and pain.
"I jumped up and screamed, 'Something got me' and I ran into the house," she said. "I could feel blood."
David Hayes said he caught a glimpse of something behind his wife and heard a thud.
The division estimates there are between 4,500 and 5,000 mountain lions in Colorado.
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