‘The Biggest Cat I’Ve Ever Seen’ Male Mountain Lion Shot After Killing Five Llamas In A Week

A huge mountain lion with a taste for llamas killed five of the woolly critters last week before it was tracked and shot near Jewel Lake. The male lion, which had a belly full of llama hair, measured nearly seven feet long and weighed about 170 pounds. It was one of the largest cats Idaho Fish and Game officials have ever seen.

“He was big. I was sad to put a cat like that down,” said Larry Miller, a Fish and Game officer who shot the animal. “Why he decided to do these llamas I haven’t a clue, but he found something he liked about them and was no doubt a problem.”

For several weeks, the large lion terrorized llama ranchers and residents south of Sandpoint. It killed four llamas in six days, far more than it could eat, Miller said.

One of the dead llamas weighed 450-pounds and belonged to Gene Clark, who has an exotic animal farm in the area.

“It takes a pretty good-sized cat to take down a llama that big,” he said. “I’ve had them (mountain lions) take cattle before, but never a llama.”

Clark lost three llamas, worth an estimated $20,000. His neighbor lost two of her three llamas to the marauder.

“It was getting scary the way it was killing,” Clark said. “People were keeping their kids inside and stopped horseback riding.”

The wooded area near Jewel Lake is home to several mountain lions. Neighbors often see them drinking out of the same pond with the llamas and said they have never been a problem before.

“We were all getting nervous,” said MaeBelle Hulquist, who owns the Jewel Lake Ranch near where the lion was treed by hounds and shot.

“We have young kids around here and people who hike up the mountain all the time. We were just glad they got it before something bad happened to someone.”

Miller estimated the mountain lion was five-to seven-years-old and said it eluded traps for a week. On Saturday, Miller enlisted the help of local hunter John Cripe who took three tracking hounds to Jewel Lake. The dogs caught the lion’s scent and treed him within an hour.

“The neighbors should have been concerned. That’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen,” said Cripe. He’s killed only two mountain lions but has treed more than 160 of them with his dogs.

Cripe suspects the lion was killing for sport rather than food.

“Male cougars like the kill sometimes better than the eatin’. They like the fight and the struggle.”

Several area sheep ranchers use llamas to guard their flocks against coyotes and cougars. Llamas are protective and territorial and have been known to stomp coyotes to death. But the llamas appeared to be no match for the big cat.

, DataTimes