Officials think the mountain lion was the same one reportedly hit by a vehicle earlier, Stone said.
He said the hunter, armed with a bow and arrow, was in a tree stand on private land Oct. 13. When the animal first appeared, the hunter tried to scare it — but it returned, he said.
“At that point he became — rightfully so — a little concerned for his personal safety, and he made the decision to attempt to shoot it with an arrow,” Stone said. “He hit the cat, it ran off, and eventually he and some other fellows came back with several firearms and dispatched it. Then after having dispatched the cat, they noticed that it had what appeared to be some other injuries.”
Stone said the injuries tended to match up with a report of about a month earlier from some people who said they had hit a mountain lion on a highway not far from where the archer shot the cat.
Those injuries might have been the reason the mountain lion didn't easily frighten when the hunter tried to scare it, according to Stone.
“That tends to match up a little bit in the fact that the behavior of the cat with the archery hunter was a little unusual,” he said. “Typically you make an attempt to scare these cats off. Even though they’re relatively large creatures, they typically get out of the area. And having the cat come back a second time seems a little strange.”
Reports indicated it was a male cat, weighing about 120 pounds. The carcass was sent for evaluation to Rapid City, where Stone said his colleagues have more expertise in such matters.
“They’re collecting all the statistics on the cat — tissue samples for genetic testing, trying to see if they can’t make some verification of where the cat may have originated from,” he said.
According to Stone, it was the first verified report of a mountain lion in the area in recent years. The rugged, remote area is covered by timber.