A mountain lion attacked a younger Coloradan on Wednesday, Could 10 whereas she tried to assemble eggs from her household’s rooster coop close to the city of Buena Vista. The incident occurred after she entered the coop’s wire-mesh enclosure and located one in every of her chickens useless on the bottom, based on a Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) press launch. Medical doctors handled her wounds on the Chafee County Hospital, and the responding brokers killed the cat.
“This was a small mountain lion in all probability simply in search of a straightforward meal within the rooster coop,” mentioned CPW Space Wildlife Supervisor Sean Shepherd. “The sufferer seemingly stunned the lion. It in all probability felt threatened.” In response to Shepherd, the lady opened the door of the picket hen home to seek out the subadult mountain lion inside. That’s when the cat lunged at her, swatting her within the face and leaving at the least one puncture wound.
Shepherd believes the swat was a defensive response fairly than a predatory assault as a result of the lion didn’t pursue the lady afterward. After wildlife brokers euthanized the lion, they despatched its stays off to a Fort Collins laboratory for testing. “Mountain lion assaults are uncommon, however we are able to’t take any possibilities when any predator makes contact with a human,” Shepherd mentioned. “And we have to know if there was anything occurring with this lion, corresponding to rabies, Extremely Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or another an infection which will have influenced its conduct. So it should be euthanized and examined.”
The assault occurred close to the scene of one other mountain lion incident that made information again in March. In that encounter, an grownup lion clawed a person’s head as he was soaking in an above-ground scorching tub. “Each of those incidents are extremely uncommon,” Shepherd mentioned. “I don’t consider there’s a sample right here. These have been unlucky coincidences. Nothing extra.”
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That is the twenty fifth time a mountain lion has injured an individual since 1990, CPW mentioned, and three of these assaults resulted in a human fatality. Previous to the March scorching tub incident, there hadn’t been a mountain lion assault in Chaffee County since February 27, 2022. With the intention to keep away from and handle mountain lion encounters, CPW recommends that individuals residing in lion nation make plenty of noise throughout daybreak and nightfall hours, set up outdoors lighting, maintain babies underneath shut supervision, and management all pets and livestock.
