Young mountain lion caught in Cody

Posted 6/8/10

The police set up a perimeter and notified the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

It took about a half-hour to collar the animal after Game and Fish was notified, said Game and Fish Bear Management Specialist Luke Ellsbury.

They almost had a …

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Young mountain lion caught in Cody

Posted

A young mountain lion was captured west of Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody Friday, in a cooperative operation with the Cody Police Department and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.At 9:53 a.m., police received a report of a mountain lion on property in the vicinity of Ina Avenue, said Vince Vanata of the Cody Police Department.

The police set up a perimeter and notified the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

It took about a half-hour to collar the animal after Game and Fish was notified, said Game and Fish Bear Management Specialist Luke Ellsbury.

They almost had a shot, but then the lion jumped an 8-foot fence and escaped. The lion dashed across a field and holed up in a carport, Vanata said.

Ellsbury entered the carport and shot the lion with a tranquilizer dart, Vanata said.

The lion was relocated west of Cody in the Blackwater Creek drainage, in the Shoshone National Forest, which is good mountain lion habitat, Ellsbury said.

Ellsbury said the lion, about 80 to 90 pounds, was 1 1/2 years old.

Typically, mothers rear their cubs for about one and a half years, then send them on their own.

Ellsbury speculated the lion was just passing through Cody in search of his own territory.

“Young toms like that travel so much,” Ellsbury said.

Mountain lions are shy and reclusive, he said. They can be a danger to pets and children, but Ellsbury said there have been very few documented cases of human-lion conflicts in Wyoming.

Vanata said the Game and Fish Department was very professional and mindful of both the public's and lion's safety.

“They did a really good job,” he said. “We worked well together.”

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