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Cat attacks runner?12/6/2023 ![]() ![]() “I was aware that there were mountain lions there, but I had never seen one. I just reacted and found myself in an epic struggle,” Kauffman said. ![]() Park rangers later determined the cat that Kauffman killed was a kitten that weighed about 35 pounds (15kg) and that it was hungry and separated from its mother. Ultimately, Kauffman had to kill the cat with his bare hands to save his own life. Kauffman had to fight for his life against the mountain lion, which scratched him and bit his wrist in a scuffle that lasted several minutes. Kauffman, like Burgess, was running alone in a mountain park 10 miles west of Fort Collins on that sunny winter day when he came across the small-ish cat on a remote section of trail, but unlike the benign interaction with Burgess, the cat that Kauffman ran into attacked him. ![]() “I’ve felt that desperation when you just want the cat to turn and leave and you’re thinking, ‘I just wanted to go on a run, and now this?!?’” I really thought the cat was going to attack when it started that charge,” Kauffman says. “My adrenaline was spiking just watching that. Travis Kauffman had a vicious confrontation with a juvenile mountain lion while trail running near Fort Collins, Colorado, on February 4, 2019. Similarly, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife have reported fewer than 20 human attacks over the past 30 years and only two fatalities during that span. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates there are 4,000 to 6,000 mountain lions in California, which has a population of 40 million people, but there have been fewer than 20 verified attacks on humans and only two fatalities since 1986. ![]() Mountain lion attacks on humans, however, are very rare. There are an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 mountain lions living in the American West, and sightings and encounters have become increasingly common on trails adjacent to growing cities like Denver, Salt Lake City, Bend, Oregon, and Reno, Nevada. ![]()
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