A Colorado runner says he had his own harrowing encounter with a mountain lion on the very trail where a woman was found dead weeks later in a fatal attack. Gary Messina tells the AP he was out before dawn on the Crosier Mountain trail in Larimer County in November when a mountain lion rushed him. He says the animal repeatedly circled and lunged as he tried to back away. Messina first hurled his phone at the cat, then snapped a stick off a log and struck it in the head. "I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me," he said, adding he was "scared for my life" during the several-minute standoff.
On New Year's Day, hikers on the same northern Colorado trail spotted a mountain lion near a person on the ground. The woman was later found dead with injuries "consistent with a mountain lion attack," Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said, per Fox News. Wildlife officers have since killed two mountain lions and are searching for a third to test for rabies or other disease. If confirmed, it would be Colorado's first deadly mountain lion attack since 1999 and the fourth in North America over the past decade, according to the Mountain Lion Foundation.
Messina says he reported his own incident days after it happened, prompting officials to post—and later remove—warning signs about mountain lions. The animals are frequently seen in that stretch near Rocky Mountain National Park but are seldom hostile. As development pushes into their habitat, "interactions can increase, not because mountain lions are becoming more aggressive, but because overlap is growing," says Byron Weckworth of the Mountain Lion Foundation. Experts advise avoiding outings at dawn and dusk, traveling in groups, maintaining eye contact if confronted, making yourself look bigger, backing away slowly, and not running.
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