{"id":90769,"date":"2020-01-14T19:12:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T19:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mountain-lion-too-close-for-comfort-captured-and-sent-to-rehab\/"},"modified":"2020-01-14T19:12:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T19:12:17","slug":"mountain-lion-too-close-for-comfort-captured-and-sent-to-rehab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mountain-lion-too-close-for-comfort-captured-and-sent-to-rehab\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain lion, too close for comfort, captured and sent to rehab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Wildlife
Wildlife officers tracked and caught a mountain lion near Vallecito that was in poor health. The lion will spend the winter at a rehab center and will be released in the spring.<\/span>Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A 6-month-old mountain lion getting a little too close for comfort to homes and people around Vallecito was captured last weekend and sent to a rehabilitation center after wildlife officers determined the cub was in poor health.<\/p>\n

Matt Thorpe, wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in Durango, said reports started coming in around New Year\u2019s Eve that a mountain lion and two cubs were hanging around homes near Vallecito, about 20 miles northwest of Durango.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 4, CPW and U.S. Wildlife Services went to Vallecito hoping to scare the animals off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was us trying to be on the more proactive side,\u201d Thorpe said. \u201cWith the snow, there\u2019s not a ton of deer or elk up there right now, and it didn\u2019t seem like they were in an ideal spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two cubs went into a tree, and wildlife officers were hoping the negative experience would cause them to find more suitable habitat to hunt.<\/p>\n

But on Thursday, another report came in that the lions were back, and wildlife officers went to Vallecito again on Saturday with the intent of chasing them off. As they were doing so, one cub was reluctant to run away and went into a tree.<\/p>\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it received multiple calls regarding this mountain lion coming close to houses, going onto porches and looking into glass doors. The kitten was in poor condition and was given an IV and antibiotics and shipped to a rehabilitation center in Silt.<\/span>Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cShe didn\u2019t seem quite right and wasn\u2019t acting the way we\u2019d expect it to,\u201d Thorpe said. \u201cSo the decision was made to capture it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wildlife officers used darts to drug the mountain lion, which allowed them to examine the cub closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we had our hand on it, we realized it was in poor condition,\u201d Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

The cub, which weighed about 25 pounds, was considered underweight. Wildlife officers surmise when they chased off the lions the first time, the cub was separated from its mom, leading to its poor health. As a result, the decision was made to send the animal to a rehab facility in Silt.<\/p>\n

Calls to the facility \u2013 the Pauline S. Schneegas Wildlife Foundation \u2013 were not immediately returned Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

But Thorpe said the facility will treat the cub for its injuries and help restore its weight. It\u2019s likely wildlife officials there will also help the lion learn how to hunt for itself. The lion will likely be released in spring or summer, somewhere back in Southwest Colorado but not near Vallecito.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to give the animal the best chance of survival when we\u2019re able to release it back,\u201d Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

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

Reports of cub going near homes, people at Vallecito<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1500,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-vallecito","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90769","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=90769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90769"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}