The mountain lion killed by a Colorado runner's bare hands was confirmed to be a relatively young cat, according to the findings of a necropsy report.
The Colorado Parks and Wildlife report revealed that the predatory cat that attacked Travis Kauffman, 31, was a three-to-four month old mountain lion 'kitten,' the heavily scavenged carcass weighing 24 pounds.
While the word 'kitten' typically refers to a very young cat, the use of the word in the report may simply mean the lion was immature, according to the Coloradoan , as the living weight of the mountain lion may have been 35 to 40 pounds.
The report described the condition of the dead cat as having been in 'fair condition' with no sign of rabies.
A necropsy report of the mountain lion that attacked runner Travis Kauffman described it as a 'kitten,' about three-to-four months old. File image of a mountain lion juvenile above
Travis Kauffman says the lion locked its jaws on his wrist and was clawing his face and arms during the attack in the mountains west of Fort Collins. He says they fell to the ground, and he tried to hit the cat with a rock and stab it with twigs before getting his foot onto its neck
Kauffman had been running along a Horsetooth Mountain Park trail in Fort Collins, Colorado, on February 4 when he was attacked by the juvenile mountain lion.
He killed it by pinning the cat down and choking it, a claim backed up by the necropsy report indicating injuries to the mountain lion's larynx and trachea.
'I was able to kind of preposition … I was kind of crouched on top of it, so imagine my wrist in its mouth and then I pinned its back legs with my left knee so I wouldn't get scratched on that end, and I was able to kind of swing my right leg around, some twister movement right there,' he said.
Travis Kauffman responds to questions during a news conference Thursday, Febrary 14 in Fort Collins, Colorado about his encounter with a mountain lion. Kaufman's girlfriend, Annie Bierbower, looks on at left
Finally he stepped on the lion's neck with right foot for a few exhausting minutes, which Kauffman said felt like 10 years.
'There were
