Men Ticketed For Pot After Picking Up Injured Mountain Lion Wildlife Official Says Trio Was Lucky To Have Escaped Injury POSTED: 8:40 a.m. MST February 1, 2005 UPDATED: 2:24 p.m. MST February 1, 2005 Story by thedenverchannel.com -- Three men who thought they rescued an injured bobcat or lynx in the middle of the highway were shocked to learn it was a 65-pound mountain lion. They were even more shocked when two of them were ticketed for drug possession. The trio was driving on U.S. Highway 36 from Estes Park, Colo., on the evening of Jan. 26, when they spotted an injured animal in the middle of the road near Pinewood Springs. "It looked up as if to say, 'Help me,'" Jason Lee Laird told the Boulder Daily Camera. The three men decided to rescue the animal so that it wouldn't be hit by another car, and take it to a 24-hour veterinary clinic in Longmont. While Laird's friends directed traffic, he scooped up the large feline into his jacket and the three men lifted the animal into the back of the Jeep they were driving. One of the men sat in the back seat and stroked the animal to reassure it as they drove toward Longmont. They stopped in the next town, ironically called Lyons, and flagged down a Boulder County sheriff's deputy who took one look at the animal and told them they had picked up a mountain lion. The deputy notified the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The deputy told the men that he smelled mar1juana in the Jeep and Laird suggested it was because the cat had relieved herself in the back of the Jeep. They deputy didn't buy it, telling the men "mountain lions don't smoke mar1juana," according to the deputy's report of the incident. Laird, 21, and Zachariah Deming, 19, were ticketed for possession of mar1juana and drug paraphernalia. The injured mountain lion, which wildlife officers guessed was four or five months old, had to be euthanized. A DOW spokesman said the men were lucky to have survived the encounter without serious injuries. Todd Malmsbury told the newspaper that he had never heard of the rescue of a mountain lion that size. "A mountain lion that large can kill a deer -- that's how they make a living," Malmsbury told the Camera. Even possession of wildlife is against the law, but the men were not ticketed for that infraction, a sheriff's department spokesman said, because they were acting in good faith. For future reference: Bobcat Mountain Lion aka Cougar lynx, ...err link
Really, who would pick up either? I've never seen a mountain lion in person but let me tell you bobcats are some fierce ass cats. I am not saying I would have just left the animal there but I would have called the proper authorities to help the animal before picking it up myself.
Poor kitty. I was hoping she would make it. Oh well, probably nothing anybody could have done at that point. A lot of them are killed by cars, so keep an eye out driving through the wilderness. Of course, how stoned do you have to be mistake it for a bobcat... They should have just said they were giving it medical mar1juana to relieve the pain and suffering.
Yea I was working on that.. My wife got an e-mail today with a series of pics where a pack mule is killing a mountain lion. I've just got this one uploaded.
You might know this guy Meowgi... True story: Not long after I had moved to Austin my roommate and I invited some friends to come up and party for the weekend. They brought up a guy I had never met (didn't know him at all) ~ they knock on the door after the drive up from Houston and the dude walks in and drops a ****ing bobcat in the middle of our living room with absolutely no warning. I had a bird at the time and the bobcat starts roaring and leaps across the room on top of the open cage (the bird roamed freely). Long story short the guy somehow pulled the bobcat off the cage after receiving several scratches and bites ~ the bird was unscathed. A few years later the guy moved to California and the bobcat mauled a couple of kids and got him in a mess of trouble.
