A lone tourist who authorities believe was killed by a mountain lion on a remote Colorado trail on New Year's Day was not the first person to encounter one of the area's predators in recent weeks.
Gary Messina said he was running along the same trail one dark November morning when his headlamp caught the glint of two eyes in nearby bushes. Messina used his phone to take a quick photo before the mountain lion pounced on him.
Messina said he threw the phone at the animal, kicked the ground and screamed as the lion continued to circle behind him. After a couple of agonizing minutes, he broke a bat-sized stick from a fallen log, hit the lion in the head with it, and it ran away, he said.
The woman whose body was found Thursday on the same trail in Mount Crozier had “wounds consistent with a mountain lion attack,” said Kara Van Hoose of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. An autopsy is scheduled for next week, said Rafael Moreno of the Larimer County Coroner's Office.
Wildlife officials late Thursday tracked and killed two cougars in the area – one at the scene and another nearby. A necropsy will help determine whether one or both of these animals attacked the woman and whether they had neurological diseases such as rabies or bird flu.
The search for the third cougar reported in the area continued Friday, Van Hoos said. Nearby trails remained closed while the hunt continued. Van Hoose said circumstances will determine whether this lion will be killed as well.
Judging by the aggressiveness of the animal that attacked him on November 11, Messina suspects it could be the same animal that killed the woman on New Year's Day.
“I had to fight it because it was basically trying to tear me apart,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was afraid for my life and couldn't escape. I tried to retreat and he tried to attack me.”
A 32-year-old man from nearby Glen Haven, Colorado, reported his encounter a few days later to wildlife officials, who posted signs warning people about the animal along trails in the Mount Crozier area northeast of Estes Park, Van Hoos said. The signs were later removed, she said.
Sightings of mountain lions in this area east of Rocky Mountain National Park are common because it offers good habitat for the animals: It is a remote area with dense forests, rocky outcroppings and plenty of elevation changes, Van Hoos said.
However, animal attacks on humans are rare, and the last suspected fatal encounter in Colorado occurred in 1999, when a three-year-old boy disappeared in the desert and his tattered clothes were found more than three years later. In 1997, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a lion and dragged away while hiking with family members in Rocky Mountain National Park.
On Thursday, two hikers saw the victim's body on the trail around noon, about 100 yards (meters) away, Van Hoos said. There was a mountain lion nearby and they were throwing rocks to scare it away. According to Van Hoos, one of the tourists, a doctor, examined the victim, but did not find a pulse.
The victim will be publicly identified following an autopsy by the coroner, who must also release the cause of death.
Cougars, also known as cougars, pumas or catamounts, can weigh 130 pounds (60 kilograms) and grow to more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length. They mainly eat deer.
There are between 3,800 and 4,400 animals in Colorado that are classified as big game species in the state and can be hunted.
Thursday's killing would be the fourth fatal mountain lion attack in North America in the past decade and the 30th since 1868, according to the California-based Mountain Lion Foundation. Not all of these deaths have been confirmed as mountain lion attacks.
Most attacks occur during the day, when humans are active in lions' territory, indicating the animals are not seeking prey, according to the rights group. About 15% of attacks are fatal.
“As more people live, work and play in areas that overlap with wildlife habitat, interactions may increase not because cougars are becoming more aggressive, but because the overlap is increasing,” said Byron Weckworth, the foundation's chief conservation officer.
To reduce the risk when traveling in groups, Weckworth said, keep children nearby and avoid dawn and dusk, when lions are most active. During the encounter, maintain eye contact with the lion, try to appear larger and back away slowly; don't run, he said.
Last year in Northern Californiatwo brothers were chased and attacked by a lion, which they tried to fight off. One of the brothers was killed.
