MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 11 (second half)

Gray Eyes

We hunted an area quite a ways from where the old codger was using poison. It had started snowing and sleeting at about 4 in the morning. We figured once it stopped we would have pretty good conditions for tracking, although it was miserable and unfruitful while the snow was coming down.

Gray was still with us so the following day we took two trucks in order to cover more area while the snow was still fresh from the day and night before. The day turned warm and the snow started melting by ten a.m. Gray and I were starting to get discouraged when Chuck radioed us saying he had a cat treed! We drove to where he had left his truck and followed his tracks over the hill to the next gulch over.

The lion had picked the tallest tree around to climb and was quite restless, but the hounds were leashed at the foot of the tree to keep it up there. Chuck estimated that it was a 140 pound male so I loaded the dart accordingly. He had brought his movie camera with him and recorded the darting process. This was unfortunate timing for me. The lion started to move around so I made my second miss of the season by trying to rush things. The dart landed in the snow so at least I didn't waste the drug and was able to use the it for a later on-the-ground injection.

Gray Eyes descending

The second dart hit it squarely in the flank. The tree seemed to explode with snow flying everywhere as it bailed out! The hounds were delirious! They eagerly pulled us along after them as we followed the lion down the hill.  It finally collapsed but was still awake so I used enough drug from the missed dart to inject another 20-pound dose into her unsteady body. 

It turned out she was female. She had gotten enough drug for a 160-pound animal but only weighed 85 pounds (shades of the lion caught in the leg hold trap the first year). Her adrenaline must have really been pumping! After we finished processing her she was still pretty thoroughly out of it, so Gray and I decided to sit with her for a while to make sure she awoke. Chuck took the hounds and said he'd meet us back at camp. She had beautiful gray eyes.

An hour and a half after she'd first been darted she groggily reeled up, fell over and got her head stuck in a hole under the stump next to her. Her claws and feet were flying as she tried to get unstuck. I gingerly grabbed her haunches and helped pull her head out. For a moment she just sat there and glared at me, not looking the least bit wobbly, then she gathered herself together and took off like she'd never been darted. I was lucky she turned around and fled since I didn't have any hounds to defend me! Looking back I know that she was a young two- or three-year-old lion because her eyes were still mostly gray with only a rim of amber.