CHAFFEE COUNTY — A man in Chaffee County is recovering from minor wounds after a run-in with a mountain lion over the weekend.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife says the incident happened on Saturday, March 18th. The man was staying in a rental home five miles west of Nathrop along Chalk Creek.
The man and his wife were sitting in an in-ground hot tub on the rental property around 8 p.m. when he felt something grab his head. The man and his wife began splashing water and screaming before shining a light on what they said was a mountain lion.
CPW officers were alerted to the incident around 10 p.m. Saturday, and when they arrived they found the man treating four superficial scratches on the top of his head near his right ear.
Four CPW Officers attempted to track the mountain lion but to no avail. The freezing temperatures, frozen snow, and sprawling subdivision made tracking by dogs not a viable option, according to CPW.
A trap has been set in the area in hopes to trap the lion. This marks the first incident of a mountain lion attacking a human since February 27th, 2022.
CPW says this is the 24th known attack of a mountain lion causing injury to a human in Colorado since 1990.
Wildlife officers will continue to monitor lion activity in the Nathrop area. Officials do encourage residents to keep reporting mountain lion sightings or activity near their homes; they can do so by calling CPW’s Salida office at 719-530-5520 or calling Colorado State Patrol at 719-544-2424 after business hours.
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