Colorado Parks and Wildlife investigating illegal killing of mountain lion near Almont

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers are investigating the illegal killing of a female mountain lion near the group campsites at Gunnison City Mountain Park in Taylor Canyon north of Gunnison.

CPW responded to the area on Friday to find the lion shot through the chest and then brought its body to some bushes, the agency said. Now they're seeking information from anyone who may have seen or heard something in that area.

"We are looking for leads or information anyone might have that could assist us with this investigation," CPW District Wildlife Manager Codi Prior said in a statement on Sunday. "Somebody killed this lion and then dumped its carcass in the place where it was discovered."

The mountain lion had previously been part of CPW's mountain lion density study in the Gunnison Basin, which CPW uses to study population size, movement, and make hunting rules and limits, agency officials said.

The lion was killed outside of hunting season, as the carcass was discovered three days before the start of legal mountain lion hunting season in Colorado, according to CPW.

Anyone with information about the killing of the lion is asked to contact Prior at 970-641-7075 or codi.prior@state.co.us. CPW's Gunnison wildlife office can also be reached at 970-641-7060. To provide information anonymously, you can contact Operation Game Thief by phone at 877-265-6648 or by email at game.thief@state.co.us.

Poaching is a crime that harms wildlife, outdoor enthusiasts, legal and ethical hunters, businesses, and taxpayers, CPW says.

In September, an extensive study done by the Montana-based wildlife conservation organization, the Boone and Crockett Club, found that less than 4% of poaching in the U.S. is discovered by law enforcement or wildlife agencies. That study also found that the financial cost of poaching, between lost fines and replacement costs for animals, is around $1.4 billion each year.

"We have long known that poaching is a major problem in the United States, but we didn't truly understand the magnitude of the problem until this Poach and Pay research," Boone and Crockett Club CEO Tony A. Schoonen said of the research at a press conference. "With this defensible assessment of the Dark Figure, we can clearly describe the conservation cost of poaching and prove that poaching is not a victimless crime-not only do we lose individual wildlife, we are also losing a valuable public resource with a high cost."