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Just like students at the University of Colorado, a young mountain lion was hoping to finally strike out on his own on the Boulder campus. Apparently, he forgot to fill out an application.

The cougar found its way into the Kittredge residence hall complex Wednesday afternoon before being tranquilized and removed by wildlife officials.

The mountain lion, which witnesses said was about 4 feet long, was in a tree next to a pedestrian bridge that crosses Kittredge Pond between Andrew and Smith halls. Officials said the cougar was spotted at around 2 p.m.

Several students stood on the bridge and began snapping pictures on their cell phones before police arrived and ushered them back into the dorms.

The cougar was shot with a tranquilizer dart around 2:50 p.m., and wildlife officers waited about 15 minutes for the drugs to take effect. Officers then removed the cat from the tree and loaded it into a truck for relocation.

Jennifer Churchill, a spokeswoman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said officers estimated the male mountain lion to be between 1 and 2 years old. She said at that age, males are no longer with their mothers and begin their search for territory of their own.

“It’s not unusual for young males to end up in strange places when they are looking for new territories,” she said. “CU is adjacent to mountain lion territory, so it’s not unusual for them to end up in town or on campus, although they normally come down at night.”

She said the animal will be outfitted with a GPS collar as part of the Front Range Mountain Lion Study and released back into the wild.

“It’s just not a good place for a mountain lion to be hanging out,” she said.

Bronson Hilliard, a CU spokesman, said it was the first instance he knew of a mountain lion being removed from campus, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened in the past. He said 993 students live in the Kittredge complex, but many of them would have been in classes while the mountain lion was in the area.

CU police and wildlife officials cleared the area as students in the nearby dorms watched the cat from their balconies and windows.

Churchill said the cougar was not involved in any other confrontations in the area, and students said the lion appeared to be more afraid of them.

“It looked terrified, and it was just stuck to that tree,” said Daniel Neeper, a freshman living in Buckingham Hall. He was walking back from eating when he spotted the mountain lion in the tree right next to him. “Maybe if it was bigger, I would have been more scared, but it was an experience, for sure.”

For more information about living with mountain lions, visit wildlife.state.co.us.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Mitchell Byars at 303-473-1329 or byarsm@dailycamera.com.









