{"id":495476,"date":"2026-01-06T02:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T02:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/495476\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T02:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T02:38:09","slug":"search-ends-for-mountain-lions-after-hiker-fatally-attacked-on-colorado-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/495476\/","title":{"rendered":"Search ends for mountain lions after hiker fatally attacked on Colorado trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

The search for mountain lions along a remote trail in Colorado where a solo hiker was fatally attacked<\/a> ended Monday after authorities killed two of the predators \u2014 including one with human DNA on its paws \u2014 but could not find a third.<\/p>\n

The victim of the New Year’s Day attack was identified as a 46-year-old woman from Fort Collins, about an hour’s drive from the attack site on the Crosier Mountain trail, east of Rocky Mountain National Park. It was the first fatal mountain lion attack in Colorado since the late 1990s, and the fourth killing in North America over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Victim Kristen Marie Kovatch died of asphyxia due to having her neck compressed, the Larimer County Coroner\u2019s Office said in a statement Monday. The injuries were \u201cconsistent with a mountain lion attack” and her death was ruled an accident, the coroner\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

Kovatch’s family said she was an ultramarathon runner who died doing something she loved \u2014 hiking and enjoying the beauty of Colorado’s public lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are devastated by the sudden and tragic loss of our beloved Kristen,\u201d the family said in a statement. \u201cOur family is struggling to comprehend this heartbreaking moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two hikers found Kovatch’s body on a trail southeast of the community of Glen Haven, Colorado, at around noon on Jan. 1, state officials said. A mountain lion was nearby and they threw rocks to scare it away. One of the hikers, a physician, attended to the victim but did not find a pulse.<\/p>\n

Later that day, two mountain lions located in the area were shot and killed by wildlife officers. <\/p>\n

A necropsy revealed that one of those animals, a male, had human DNA on its four paws, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said Monday. The other lion killed did not have signs of human DNA, she said.<\/p>\n

The search for a third mountain lion spotted in the area stretched over four days with no further sign of the animal, officials said. Hiking tails in the area were closed while the search was ongoing.<\/p>\n

Mountain lions \u2014 also known as cougars, pumas or catamounts \u2014 can weigh up to 130 pounds (60 kilograms) and grow to more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. They primarily eat deer.<\/p>\n

Colorado has an estimated 3,800 to 4,400 mountain lions, which are classified as a big game species in the state and can be hunted.<\/p>\n

A Glen Haven man running on the same trail where Kovatch was killed encountered a mountain lion<\/a> in November. He said it rushed him aggressively but he fought it off with a stick.<\/p>\n

It was one of several mountain lion encounters east of Rocky Mountain National Park in recent months, according to Van Hoose. In two of those cases, the predators killed dogs being walked by their owners, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The search for mountain lions along a remote trail in Colorado where a solo hiker was fatally attacked…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":495477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[222911,3425,347,10106,57,9427,1667,50,159,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-495476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-222911","10":"tag-animals","11":"tag-article","12":"tag-climate-and-environment","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-hiking","15":"tag-mountain-lions","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-u-s-news","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}