Man kills mountain lion in fight
WHEN a young mountain lion clamped its jaws on to Travis Kauffman’s wrist and clawed at his face, he screamed a “barbarian yell,” jammed his foot on to the animal’s neck and held it there until the cat quit thrashing and died.
After a couple of minutes, Kauffmann recalled on Thursday, “it 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”.
Through it all, the 31-yearold trail runner said, the cat remained eerily silent.
It was the first time Kauffman publicly recounted the February 4 ordeal that left him with 28 stitches and a reputation for toughness and bravery that overshadows his wiry frame.
“I will never be able to live up to the reputation,” said Kauffman, who stands 177cm and weighs about 70kg.
“The story is bigger than my puny form.”
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 3m away.
That cat lunged and locked its teeth on to his wrist and they tumbled off the side of the trail. Kauffman screamed, 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.
“I knew with two pretty good blows to the back of the head (and) it didn’t release, that I was probably going to have to do something a little more drastic,” he said.
“I was able to kind of shift my weight and get a foot on its neck until it succumbed.”
Bleeding from his face and wrist, he jogged back down the trail, where he met other runners who got him to a hospital.