Posted on 02/02/2005 2:48:47 PM PST by swilhelm73
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 marijuana 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 marijuana," according to the deputy's report of the incident.
Laird, 21, and Zachariah Deming, 19, were ticketed for possession of marijuana 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.
That's why they call it 'dope'....
They should have told the cops they were trying to relax the cat by blowing reefer smoke into its face.
Damn pot smokin cougars.
Yep. That's definitely probable cause for pot possession. :)
LOL!
If you can put an injured mountain lion in a jeep without getting torn up, the thing is probably too badly injured to save.
When mountain lions are outlawed, only potheads will have mountain lions.
They're more into Ecstasy.
PS If you are at a rave and a mountain lion wants to hug you, do not let it!
"Mersh, you got to lay off the pipe!"
It's a strange tale. They were ticketed because the officer smelled marijuana, not found any? I'm not sure that will hold up.
The mountain lion seems to have been too badly injured to be a danger to them. Then again, nature is very, very unpredictable. There are no hard facts on an intelligent animal's reaction. The whole thing sounds goofy. Almost as if others besides the guys may have been smoking something other than Camels.
So the mountain lion took a bite out of the guy's elbow and the driver of the jeep turned around and said, "Hey little kitty cat... don't bogart that joint!"
no good deed goes unpunished.
well done Officer.
No good deed ever goes unpunished!
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