{"id":793063,"date":"2019-02-14T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T23:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/colorado-trail-runner-recounts-life-or-death-fight-with-mountain-lion\/"},"modified":"2019-02-19T10:49:42","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:49:42","slug":"colorado-trail-runner-recounts-life-or-death-fight-with-mountain-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/colorado-trail-runner-recounts-life-or-death-fight-with-mountain-lion\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado trail runner recounts life-or-death fight with mountain lion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Travis Kauffman responds to questions during a news conference Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, in Fort Collins, Colo., about his encounter with a mountain lion while running a trail just west of Fort Collins last week. Kaufman’s girlfriend, Annie Bierbower, looks on at left. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FORT COLLINS, Colo. \u2014 When a young mountain lion clamped its jaws onto Travis Kauffman\u2019s wrist and clawed at his face, he screamed a \u201cbarbarian yell,\u201d jammed his foot onto the animal\u2019s neck and held it there until the cat quit thrashing and died.<\/p>\n

After a couple of minutes, Kauffmann recalled Thursday, \u201cit finally stopped moving and then the jaws opened and I was able to kind of scramble back up the hill and get the heck out of Dodge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through it all, the 31-year-old trail runner said, the cat remained eerily silent.<\/p>\n

It was the first time Kauffman publicly recounted the Feb. 4 ordeal that left him with 28 stitches and a reputation for toughness and bravery that overshadows his wiry frame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will never be able to live up to the reputation,\u201d said Kauffman, who stands 5-foot-10 (1.5-meters) and weighs about 155 pounds (70 kilograms). \u201cThe story is bigger than my puny form.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kauffman said he was running a trail in the mountains west of Fort Collins, Colorado, when he heard pine needles rustle behind him. He turned to see the mountain lion about 10 feet (3 meters) away.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my worst fears was confirmed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That cat lunged, and Kauffman raised his hands and screamed.<\/p>\n

The animal locked its teeth onto his wrist and they tumbled off the side of the trail.<\/p>\n

A wave of fear rolled over him, he said, and he worried that the animal\u2019s full-grown mother would join the attack to defend her offspring, but no other cat appeared.<\/p>\n

Fear then gave way to the fighting instinct, he said.<\/p>\n

Kauffman grabbed a rock with his free hand and beat the cat on the back of the head. He also tried stabbing it with twigs, but nothing worked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew with two pretty good blows to the back of the head (and) it didn\u2019t release, that I was probably going to have to do something a little more drastic,\u201d he said. \u201cI was able to kind of shift my weight and get a foot on its neck\u201d until it succumbed.<\/p>\n

Bleeding from his face and wrist, he jogged back down the trail, where he met other runners who got him to a hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thankful that he had his eyes and his fingers and all his parts, and it didn\u2019t look as bad as I maybe would have thought that it could,\u201d said his girlfriend, Annie Bierbower.<\/p>\n

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers retrieved the dead cat. They said their investigation and a necropsy confirmed Kauffman\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravis is a pretty amazing young man,\u201d said Ty Petersburg, a wildlife manager for the agency.<\/p>\n

Petersburg said officers set up cameras and traps in the area for several days after the attack. They saw no large mountain lions but captured two young ones in good health. He said both are in a rehabilitation center and the agency hopes to release them back into the wild.<\/p>\n

Kauffman, who described himself as an avid runner and skier, doesn\u2019t plan to retreat from the outdoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will go run those trails again,\u201d he said, but added, \u201cI will go with a buddy there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Dan Elliott in Denver contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travis Kauffman responds to questions during a news conference Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, in Fort Collins, Colo., about his encounter with a mountain lion while running a trail just west of Fort Collins last week. Kaufman’s girlfriend, Annie Bierbower, looks on at left. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski) FORT COLLINS, Colo. \u2014 When a young mountain lion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 15:41:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}