Sleeping Lion at 10 Yards

[FullCryHounds]

March 31, last day of lion season here in CO. I was driving down Interstate 70 west of Denver and I spotted a drag mark coming down the side of the hill about 200 yards off the Hwy. Naturally I stopped and took a look. There was fresh blood along the drag mark. I found this lion trying desperately to drag an elk carcass under some brush. It was around 2 in the afternoon. I watched for about 20 minutes and took off. The elk was on a property I have permission to lion hunt on but the quota was already filled in that unit so it was off limits. It appeared to be a large lion but at 200 yards it was tough to be sure.
Yesterday, I headed back with a trail camera and walked up on the lion sound asleep. I was less then 10 yards away when it finally woke up. Looking more closely, I could see the elk was a calf and the lion was a female. She watched me intently and when I started walking uphill to get a better angle for pictures, she laid her head back down on the ground and didn’t move. We played this cat and mouse game for a good 10 minutes. I finally pitched about 6 snow balls at her and she finally got up and took off. I set up the camera on the kill and left. These pictures show her sleeping from about 10 yards away and then with her head up staring at me.
This is the third time this year I’ve found a lion actually on a kill and in all three cases the lion was sitting on the kill or lying within 5 yards of it. Proof they don’t leave the kill site at all but stay right with it. I’ll post trail cam pics later if I get any good ones. So if you ever find a fresh kill, you probably bumped the cat off of it.
I wondered why she stashed the carcass where she did. It was out in the open. As it turns out, she had no choice, it got caught on a stick and she couldn’t get it free. You can see the stick on one of the pictures of the elk.


Drag mark coming down hill on RH side of picture


Sound Asleep


Lion watching me at 10 yards


Calf Elk



Calf Elk

[Buddyw]

Damn.... that's an awsome experience.. I'm impressed you got up there without waking her up?? especially In Snow .. Guess I"m used to the Crunchy Load Snow.... I kinda forgot what Power snow sounds like..

Buddy

[FullCryHounds]

[Mike Leonard]

Excellent work Dean! and so true they lay right on them a bunch of the time. Bobcats will do the same thing on their deer kills. I think they get a good bait of the food, and decide their are a bit sleepy and what better place to grab a nap and keep the freeloaders from bumming any free lunches while they are alsleep.

Plenty of times treed the lion right above it's kill if it's got a fully belly and still a little groggy.

Bumped a big tom bobcat off a fawn kill last weekend. He had went about 25 yards and layed down on a patch of cedar snags that washed together. He had a couple of meals off it, and I guess decided they were so easy to get around there he would just sleep it off and let the ravens have the rest, so he didn't even bother to bury it.

[Dan V]

Dean,
Good job on this and other educational posts you have put on here. With the photos of the kill with the kittens and the link to the state web site with the lion identification info.

Keep it up, its a helluva lot better then all the fighting and other bs that can go on. We can all learn something.

Dan