Elk NetworkMountain Lion Attacks Increasing in Colorado

General | September 13, 2019

So far in 2019, there have been three mountain lion attacks in Colorado.

“Mountain lion attacks are rare. We’ve had 22 since 1990,” Jason Clay, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman, told KUSA-TV. “I think it’s a misconception that mountain lions do not use urban areas. They do. All along the Front Range is good mountain lion habitat.”

An eight-year-old boy recently suffered injuries after a mountain lion mauled him as he played in his yard. Prior to that, a hunter scouting for elk fought off a mountain lion with his pocket knife. And earlier in 2019, a jogger strangled a mountain lion to death after it jumped him.

“Mountain lions are generally very elusive. They get on our radar a lot more often because of new technologies that we have that actually see them,” Clay told KUSA-TV. “We get a lot of people that capture them on security cameras outside their home walking through at night. Before, if you didn’t have that technology and you were sleeping through the night, you would have never known a mountain lion passed through.”

(Photo source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife)