Body

A solo hiker’s body found on New Year’s Day on a remote Colorado trail is being treated as a suspected mountain lion attack, authorities said, weeks after a separate man reported a mountain lion encounter on the same path. Two hikers found the victim’s body around noon on the Crosier Mountain trail and saw a mountain lion nearby, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The hikers threw rocks to scare the animal away, and one of them, a physician, attempted to help the victim but did not find a pulse, Van Hoose said.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife said the woman’s injuries match what officials would expect from a mountain lion attack. “Wounds consistent with a mountain lion attack,” Kara Van Hoose of Colorado Parks and Wildlife said. Rafael Moreno with the Larimer County Coroner’s Office said an autopsy is scheduled for next week.

Wildlife officials late Thursday tracked down and killed two mountain lions in the area—one at the scene and another nearby—Van Hoose said. A necropsy is expected to help determine whether either or both animals attacked the woman and whether they had neurological diseases such as rabies or avian flu. Van Hoose also said a search for a third mountain lion was ongoing Friday, and nearby trails remained closed while officials hunted.

Van Hoose said circumstances would determine whether that third lion is also killed. She described the habitat around the area east of Rocky Mountain National Park as remote and heavily forested with rocky terrain and elevation changes, making it suitable for mountain lions. Mountain lion sightings in that region are common, she said, but attacks on humans are rare.

The episode also echoes a separate attack-fight reported in the area in mid-November. Gary Messina, a 32-year-old man from nearby Glen Haven, told The Associated Press that he was running along the Crosier Mountain trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in nearby brush. Messina said he used his phone to snap a photo before the mountain lion rushed him, then threw the phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him.

Messina said he broke off a bat-sized stick from a downed log and hit the lion in the head with it, and that the animal ran off. “I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was scared for my life and I wasn’t able to escape. I tried backing up and it would try to lunge at me.” Messina reported his encounter to wildlife officials days later, and Van Hoose said signs were posted to warn people along the trails but were later removed.

Authorities said the victim will be publicly identified after the autopsy, which is also expected to provide a cause of death. Van Hoose said attacks are uncommon in Colorado, with the last suspected fatal human encounter dating to 1999, when a 3-year-old boy disappeared in the wilderness 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, she said.

Mountain lions—also called cougars, pumas or catamounts—can weigh up to about 130 pounds and grow to more than 6 feet long, and they primarily eat deer, officials said. Colorado has an estimated 3,800 to 4,400 mountain lions, which the state classifies as big game species that can be hunted.

The Mountain Lion Foundation, based in California, said Thursday’s killing would be the fourth fatal mountain lion attack in North America over the past decade and the 30th since 1868, though not all those deaths have been confirmed as mountain lion attacks. The advocacy group said most attacks occur during the day and when humans are active in lion territories, suggesting the animals are not seeking out victims, and that about 15% of attacks are fatal.

Byron Weckworth, the foundation’s chief conservation officer, said increasing overlap between wildlife habitat and where people live, work and recreate can drive more encounters. “As more people live, work, and recreate in areas that overlap wildlife habitat, interactions can increase, not because mountain lions are becoming more aggressive, but because overlap is growing,” Weckworth said. He said hikers can reduce risk by traveling in groups, keeping children close, and avoiding dawn and dusk when lions are most active.

During an encounter, Weckworth said people should maintain eye contact, make themselves appear larger, back away slowly, and not run. He cited a case from Northern California last year in which two brothers were stalked and attacked by a lion they tried to fight off, and one of the brothers was killed.