Mountain Lion Causes Closure of Trails at Cheyenne Mountain State Park

The local Colorado Springs media has been reporting on this story about a supposed mountain lion attack at Cheyenne Mountain State Park:

Two encounters with a mountain lion have forced officials to close trails at Cheyenne Mountain Park.

Division of Parks and Wildlife spokesman Michael Seraphin said a man jogging in the park encountered the animal that had a deer carcass about 30 feet away from a trail on Friday.

A female jogger encountered the same mountain lion and ran. She was slightly injured when the mountain lion chased her before returning to the carcass. [Gazette]

You can read the rest at the link but a park ranger shot the mountain lion in response. However the mountain lion ran away after being shot so the park has closed trails on the south side of the park as they search for the mountain lion. Some of the commenters on the Gazette’s website are angry that the lion was shot. I think the park rangers are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If they did not shoot the lion and it came back later and attacked another jogger the park would be highly criticized. So I do not fault the park rangers on this.

However, I do think that it is important for park users to understand some basics before entering the park such as to not run from a mountain lion. Mountain lions tend to instinctively chase something that is running from it. The best thing to do is to make yourself appear to be as big as possible and slowly back away as you maintain eye contact with the lion. This situation is similar when park rangers have to shoot bears when they attack campers that leave food in their tents at night. It is not the bear’s fault but park rangers have to protect other campers from similar incidents. By the way I had my own encounter with a mountain lion three years ago.

Further Reading: On Walkabout at: Cheyenne Mountain State Park