{"id":39800,"date":"2022-06-27T16:06:32","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T22:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-mountain-lion-leaves-hiding-spot-in-downtown-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:51:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:51:43","slug":"update-mountain-lion-leaves-hiding-spot-in-downtown-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-mountain-lion-leaves-hiding-spot-in-downtown-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Mountain lion leaves hiding spot in downtown Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A mountain lion hid in the backyard at 34 N. Ash St. in Cortez on Friday and left by Saturday morning. (Andy Brown\/Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A mountain lion hiding in a backyard of a residence in downtown Cortez has moved on.<\/p>\n

The young lion was spotted Friday morning by a resident who said it was \u201cjust sitting and staring\u201d at 34 N. Ash St. a block north of Main Street, said Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin.<\/p>\n

Officers with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Cortez Police responded and discovered it \u201cin a tight spot\u201d in the backyard, said wildlife officer Adrian Archuleta.<\/p>\n

The alley was blocked off to give the lion space, and by Saturday morning it had moved on, he said. There have been no reported sightings since then.<\/p>\n

\"A
A young mountain lion spent Friday hunkered down in the backyard of a residence on North Ash Street. It has since moved on. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When it was first reported Friday morning, a Nixle warning from the Montezuma County Emergency Alert System advised nearby residents to keep pets and kids inside and to close doors.<\/p>\n

The lion was not acting aggressively, CPW reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are neat to see. I\u2019ve only seen one in the wild,\u201d said a neighbor who declined to be identified.<\/p>\n

CPW opted to give the lion a chance to leave on its own, figuring it was waiting for lower temperatures and the cover of darkness.<\/p>\n

If it had not left by Saturday morning, CPW would have considered capturing it for relocation by using a tranquilizer gun or setting up a trap.<\/p>\n

An initial Nixle report was that the lion was a cub. It appeared to be older than one year, said CPW spokesman John Livingston.<\/p>\n

\u201cMountain lions are territorial and have to find their own space, and so it\u2019s usually the younger lions we see pop up in more unusual spaces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

took refuge in backyard Friday and left by Saturday morning <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84453,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39800\/revisions\/84453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39800"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}