Why Did Colorado Parks & Wildlife Kill Mountain Lion Mother & Her Year Old Cubs Instead of Relocating Them? Take Action Now!

A mother mountain lion and her three kittens were the recent casualties of an urban sprawl in Colorado.

Since the beginning of the year, Glenwood Springs residents had noticed they weren’t alone in their neck of the woods. Over the past several weeks they had seen a family of mountain lions lurking about and after one neighborhood dog was killed, people began to worry.

That’s when they decided to call Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW). Perhaps residents thought CPW officials would be able to scare the cougars back to the mountains or relocate them to a more remote area where they wouldn’t pose a threat. Unfortunately, officials had another solution in mind. They trapped the mother and her one-year-old kittens and then killed them.

Parks and Wildlife defended their action by saying it was their “only option.” But that simply isn’t the case. Colorado is a vast, mountainous state with wide swaths of unpopulated lands where these mountain lions could have been released to live a long, free and wild life. Instead, officials decided to take the lives of five pumas — a mother, her three cubs, and another adult. This is unbelievably tragic and must end!

The land these animals were roaming is theirs, not ours, and they should not be punished simply for being the predators that nature intended them to be.

Of course we must take the safety of Glenwood Springs residents into account, but euthanizing these wild animals should have never been an option, when they could have easily been relocated. Especially since their location could have been monitored by tracking collars.

It’s too late for the five mountain lions that were killed by CPW, but hopefully it won’t be for the next family of pumas in Colorado or anywhere around the world.

Please sign this Care2 petition and demand that Colorado Parks and Wildlife stop using lethal methods to deal with wildlife, ask them to relocate them instead. SIGN HERE!

You can also contact:

Colorado Parks & Wildlife Headquarters at (303) 297-1192​ and ask for Mike Porras, the Public Information Officer or you can email him at mike.porras@state.co.us

Northwest Region / Glenwood Springs Office at (970) 947-2920

Wildlife Law Enforcement & Public Safety​ at (303) 291-7220 or you can email dnr_cpw.lerecords@state.co.us