A woman has reportedly been killed in a mountain lion attack in Colorado on Thursday, according to authorities.
Hikers told authorities they saw a mountain lion near a person who was lying on the ground 100 yards away around 12:15 p.m., on the Crosier Mountain trail in unincorporated Larimer County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a press release.
The hikers scared the lion away by throwing rocks and then attended to the adult woman, the release said. One of the witnesses was a physician and "did not find a pulse," said Kara Van Hoose, spokesperson with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The victim's identity and cause of death will be released by the Larimer County Coroner. Colorado Parks and Wildlife is investigating the death as a suspected mountain lion attack. "There were signs that this was consistent with a mountain lion attack but we can't say for sure," Van Hoose told reporters Thursday. She said it's believed the woman was hiking alone.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, along with Larimer County Sheriff deputies, Estes Park police and Glen Haven Area Volunteer firefighters responded and launched an extensive search for mountain lions. They were aided by a Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist who was conducting aerial deer surveys in the county and houndsmen with dogs to track the scent of mountain lions.
One mountain lion was located at the scene but it ran away when officers shot it. It was tracked by the officers and euthanized, the release said. A second mountain lion was found nearby shortly after and also euthanized, the release said. Colorado Parks and Wildlife policy mandates that wildlife involved in attacks on humans must be euthanized for public safety.
"It is unknown if one or multiple animals were involved in the suspected attack," the Colorado Parks and Wildlife release said.
This isn't the first mountain lion attack in the area in recent weeks. Gary Messina, 32, told ABC News he was running along the same trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in the nearby brush. Messina used his phone to snap a quick photo before a mountain lion rushed him.
Messina said he threw the phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him. After a couple of harrowing minutes he broke a bat-sized stick off a downed log, hit the lion in the head with it and it ran off, he said.
Based on the aggressiveness behavior of the animal that attacked him on Nov. 11, Messina suspects it could be the same one that killed the woman on New Year's Day.
"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."
Messina, from nearby Glen Haven, Colorado, reported his encounter to wildlife officials days later who posted signs to warn people about the animal along trails in the Crosier Mountain area northeast of Estes Park.
Mountain lion attacks on humans are extremely rare and the last suspected fatal encounter in Colorado was in 1999, when a 3-year-old boy disappeared in the wilderness and his tattered clothes were found more than three years later. In 1997, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a lion and dragged away while hiking with family members in Rocky Mountain National Park.
