By Michael Booth | The Colorado Sun
In May 2023, a homeowner in Douglas County was astonished to find a partially paralyzed mountain lion taking cover between her basement window well and a spruce tree, dragging itself forward with its front paws. The year-old female couldn’t stand up, a phenomenon clear in the video the owner took while safely inside the house.
Wildlife officers tranquilized the debilitated lion, then euthanized her with a gunshot to the chest to protect brain cells for a necropsy.
After a year of studying the animal, researchers are declaring her the first North American case of “staggering disease” in a mountain lion, according to Colorado State University veterinarian and former Colorado Parks and Wildlife pathologist Karen Fox.