Fact-checking Derek Wolfe’s excuse to trophy hunt a lion

As someone who lives in mountain lion country raising goats and chickens, I have been following dozens of news stories that celebrate a professional football player who killed a massive male mountain lion a few weeks ago in Colorado.

The news frenzy followed former Denver Bronco Derek Wolfe, once he posted on his Instagram account photos of a mountain lion’s bloody carcass in his arms, then gutted and strapped to his back.

Wolfe bragged about his kill on sports talk radio and his story rapidly spread like a virus to the coasts, including a New York Post story that led with: “Super Bowl champion slayed a massive mountain lion in Colorado.”

No one fact-checked Wolfe’s story that he had killed a “monster that was wreaking havoc on a neighborhood.” Or the illogical science he’s been pushing to justify trophy hunting, which holds dangerous implications for healthy and conflict-free apex predators that are essential to Colorado’s great outdoors.

Here’s the short version of Wolfe’s initial story on talk radio:

At 2 a.m. Wolfe was waiting at home in Greenwood Village, while his buddy, a commercial hunting guide named Alex Nestor was driving around prime mountain lion country, looking for fresh tracks in hopes of finding a mountain lion for Wolfe to kill.

Wolfe was about to give up, but the outfitter — whose Instagram account features clients posed alongside dead zebra, rhino, hippo and giraffe — told him, “we’re gonna find you one.”

Wolfe was thrilled. “I was all jacked up, because hunting a mountain lion is like Christmas morning for me,” he said on air.

Wolfe drove to Grant, a popular secluded spot for hiking and camping, where Nestor’s hounds barked at the big cat stuck in a tree; but Wolfe lagged a mile behind on foot, getting lost in deep snow until he finally caught up. Who knows how long the cat was held up in that tree.

A hunting magazine that interviewed Wolfe after the kill reported that “Wolfe had been waiting for an opportunity to get a mountain lion.” But “the cat isn’t only a trophy for Wolfe … he actually did the local community a service.”

This was the spin widely promoted: An area homeowner wanted Wolfe to “get rid” of a lion, because one apparently had killed a dog last year.

But Colorado Parks and Wildlife Northeast Deputy Regional Manager Kristin Cannon reports: “We don’t have any way to confirm or refute if the harvested lion was involved in conflict.” And CPW has no records of mountain lion attacks on dogs in Grant from 2022 to the present.

Evidence does show, however, that this predator had just dined on a “warm” deer before being hunted down, demonstrating this mountain lion was in fact the appropriate hunter in this scenario.

When many Coloradans weren’t buying the heroic narrative, including 200 people who called the state wildlife agency to protest, Wolfe said he was a victim being harassed. He said he was helping wildlife by taking out the biggest male.

“There’s a real reason,” Wolfe explained. “Those fullgrown males will kill kittens to get the female lions to go back into heat. So, it’s important to manage that herd, right?”

Wolfe’s statements go against basic lion ecology that can easily be found in famed lion researcher Ken Logan’s must-read “Desert Puma,” and in papers by top lion researchers Maurice Hornocker, Sharon Negri and Linda Sweanor.

Mountain lion experts say the best way to maintain social structures and the integrity of populations is to leave the adult males with territories alone. Killing territorial males creates the greatest disruption among populations and keeps the population in turmoil. Turmoil increases, not decreases, lion-lion conflict.

With regard to infanticide, resident males don’t kill kittens they sire — that would completely undermine every theory of evolution.

What’s dangerous about spreading faulty science, which some like to call barstool biology, is that there are actual concerning reports of an unusual number of dogs being killed by mountain lions this winter in Nederland, as reported in the Daily Camera.

One theory that can be reasonably considered based on established science is that trophy hunting can contribute to making our dogs less safe. Science is clear that taking out one mature male quite adept at killing traditional prey, puts out the welcome mat for inexperienced, opportunistic juveniles who are more prone to kill a dog.

“For every large resident male killed, two or three young guys came to the funeral,” prominent lion researcher Dr. Robert Wielgus former director of the Large Carnivore Lab at Washington State University told ABC News.

Looking to trophy hunters to save the day is no remedy and conversely is associated with “increased, not decreased, complaints and depredations” on nonhuman animals, according to one study. Another study that concludes mountain-lion-human conflict is positively related to trophy hunting also warns about dire consequences from this path of “overexploitation and persecution of large carnivores resulting from conflict with humans.”

We should all be willing to push back against tall tales, even those coming from an NFL player. This wasn’t an act of civil service, nor was it for the good of the mountain lion “herds” of Colorado. He took out the biggest and best male a commercial guide could hang onto, for the bragging pleasure of posting online, for being a guest on Tucker Carlson and ultimately for keeping a head and a hide. And because he sees predators as competition.

“I love to hunt deer and elk, and mountain lions kill deer and elk,” Wolfe explained on the radio.

Similarly, Wolfe’s buddy who found him a trophy lion to kill and take out of the gene pool has posted videos of his multiple commercial mountain lion hunts and one titled, “A Gaw Damn Deer & Bighorn Killer.

Yes, of course, mountain lions kill deer and elk, they have no choice in order to survive. This is in stark contrast to trophy hunters.