Runner fought off mountain lion with stick just weeks before fatal attack on same Colorado trail

Weeks before a hiker was killed in a suspected mountain lion attack in Colorado, a man was nearly attacked by another big cat on the same trail.

Gary Messina said he was rushed by a mountain lion while running along the same northern Colorado trail on a dark morning in November.

Messina said he threw his phone at the animal while it kept circling behind him and was able to get away after a couple of minutes when he broke a stick off of a log and hit the mountain lion over the head with it.

“I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was scared for my life, and I wasn’t able to escape. I tried backing up, and it would try to lunge at me.”

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A woman who was found dead on the same trail on New Year’s Day had “wounds consistent with a mountain lion attack,” a Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman said.

“Around 12:15 this afternoon, hikers on the Crosier Mountain trail in Larimer County observed a mountain lion near a person lying on the ground from about 100 yards away,” Kara Van Hoose said during a news conference Thursday.

After the suspected attack, wildlife officials killed two mountain lions and are searching for a third to determine if the animal had rabies or another disease.

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The attack was the first suspected fatal mountain lion mauling in more than 25 years, with the last one occurring in 1999.

Messina said he reported his incident days later, and officials posted warning signs about mountain lions that were later taken down.

He said he believes the animal that attacked him may have been the same one that killed the New Year’s hiker.

Mountain lion sightings in that area of Rocky Mountains National Park are common, but the animals are rarely aggressive.

The New Year’s Day attack would be the fourth fatal one in North America in the last decade and the 30th since 1868, according to the Mountain Lion Foundation.

“As more people live, work and recreate in areas that overlap wildlife habitat, interactions can increase, not because mountain lions are becoming more aggressive, but because overlap is growing,” the organization’s chief conservation officer, Byron Weckworth, said.

To avoid risk of an attack, experts tell nature seekers to avoid dawn and dusk, when mountain lions are most active and to travel in groups.

During an encounter, experts suggest maintaining eye contact with the animal, trying to appear as large as possible, slowly backing away without turning your back on the animal and not running.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.