{"id":50817,"date":"2020-10-21T16:30:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T22:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-hunter-encounters-mountain-lion-be-good-kitty\/"},"modified":"2020-10-21T22:30:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T22:30:03","slug":"bayfield-hunter-encounters-mountain-lion-be-good-kitty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-hunter-encounters-mountain-lion-be-good-kitty\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayfield hunter encounters mountain lion: \u2018Be good, kitty\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A mountain lion silently watched Steve Shively from about 20 yards away while he was scouting for elk in the San Juan National Forest on Sunday.<\/span>Courtesy of Steve Shively<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Bayfield hunter\u2019s video of a mountain lion, sitting silently 20 yards from him, has gained national media attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cHold on there, kitty. I see you,\u201d said Steve Shively, a resident near Bayfield, in the video. \u201cBe good, kitty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shively\u2019s encounter was less than one week after a Utah jogger shared a video, which gained international attention, of a mountain lion following him and occasionally lunging. While Shively saw the animal in the San Juan National Forest near Bayfield, the town has also reported mountain lion sightings within its limits.<\/p>\n

For Shively, the encounter was a tense few minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter changing the memory cards and rustling around in the leaves, I stood up and turned around slowly scanning the woods behind me,\u201d Shively said in a Facebook post. \u201cSuddenly, I spotted this motionless mountain lion crouched down behind a rock ready to pounce on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shively was scouting for elk in a remote area of the San Juan National Forest on Sunday when he saw the mountain lion. His recording shows the lion sitting behind a rock before slowly walking away into the forest.<\/p>\n

In an interview, he said the mountain lion snuck right up on him, that was the \u201cwow\u201d factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was way too close, too close for comfort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Since then, state and national news outlets have picked up the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy,\u201d Shively said. \u201cI had somebody from a news outlet from New York contact me. I was like, \u2018Wow, this has gone far and wide.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe Lewandowski, spokesman for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Southwest Region, said the incident was rare. It was probably a very scary situation, but it is unlikely the mountain lion was stalking Shively.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lion being a lion,\u201d Lewandowski said. \u201cThe chances of this guy coming across a mountain lion are extremely low, but there was nothing unusual about the animal\u2019s behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Humans look strange to mountain lions, which prey on deer and elk, he said. Walking upright and wearing bright clothes \u2013 humans don\u2019t look like prey to the big cats. Any sort of attack on a human is extremely rare.<\/p>\n

\u201cMountain lions are ambush predators. If they\u2019re stalking someone, it\u2019s unlikely anyone would see it before maybe something bad happened,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing bad happened, thankfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado is prime habitat for mountain lions, but it\u2019s rare to see them. There are about 6,000 to 7,000 mountain lions in all of Colorado, a low number when compared to the state\u2019s 500,000 deer population.<\/p>\n

During mountain lion encounters, people should look big, talk firmly and loudly and throw sticks, rocks or other objects toward the animal. Back away slowly, but don\u2019t turn and run, Lewandowski said.<\/p>\n

Keeping deer or other typical prey away from a person\u2019s property can also help. Mountain lions are active from dusk to dawn, so if hiking during those times, people should go with a partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe video shouldn\u2019t discourage people from going hiking and exploring the woods,\u201d Lewandowski said.<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

cougar crouched behind rock before walking away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[731,28,29,4691,199,1394,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-pine-river-times-news","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-vallecito-reservoir","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50817","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=50817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50817"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}