What a circus.
It’s been less than a week since news broke that former Denver Broncos defensive end Derek Wolfe killed a monster mountain lion in Grant, Colorado.
And since then, an absolute firestorm has circulated on social media, with many folks extremally angry that he LEGALLY hunted and killed a massive mountain lion… who was eating people’s dogs.
The former Super Bowl champ, who still lives in Denver, had gotten a call that this beast had been terrorizing the area, so he headed up the mountains to see if he could track down this monstrous cat.
This particular mountain lion had killed two dogs in the area, and they were fearful that he could be looking for more easy kills.
A big mountain lion will generally weigh around 175-pounds, although they can be well over 200 in some instances. They eat anywhere from 8 to 12 pounds of meat in a day… so, that’s a lot of neighborhood dogs, deer, elk, and anything else they can get their paws on.
Mountain lions have also killed 15 dogs in 30 days near Boulder, Colorado recently, so naturally, people in this area were itching to get rid of this cat.
Wolfe set out with his dogs and his bow to put an end to the killings, and sure enough, he got the best of the ginormous mountain lion.
He explained in an Instagram post:
“Late Tuesday night I got a call from Hunt Nest to see if I wanted to stalk a giant Tom (male mountain lion) who has been wreaking havoc in a rural neighborhood. He had already killed two of her dogs and was living under her porch, nervous what he might do next.
We found a fresh 4×4 mule deer he had just killed. We hiked straight up 2500ft and down the other side, then back up again, back down the other side and then back up again to 9600ft.
Exhausted, dehydrated, cramping I drew back my Hoyt bow and sent an Sevr Broadhead through him.
Then I had to crawl backwards down the mountain with him to get him to the truck I fell 10ft off a rock face on the way down lol. Any guess how big this thing was?”
He was immediately blasted online by animal rights groups despite the fact that this kill was completely legal under Colorado state law.
According to TMZ, Wolfe, who is an avid outdoorsmen, followed all of the required procedure:
“Wolfe did all that was required of him in order to lawfully take down the big cat in Grant.
According to the CPW, Wolfe obtained his mountain lion hunting license and is ‘in good standing’ with the org. It also said Wolfe checked all the boxes necessary — such as properly reporting the kill — to make it all above board.”
But it goes even further.
In a recent conversation with Tucker Carlson, Derek explained that he has been reported to Colorado Parks & Wildlife more than 200 times since the news broke, even though, once again, the hunt was completely legal.
He explained the scene when he first arrived to the property:
“We get up there and the first thing we see is a full grown mule deer that he had drug across the road, and we followed those tracks up to this woman’s porch, it was living underneath this porch. She said her cats were acting weird, well it’s because you have a full grown 200 pound, 8 foot mountain lion walking across your front yard.
In Colorado you’re allowed to use dogs to get these cats treed because it’s important to see what kind of cat you’re after, you want to go after full grown male mountain lions because those males will kill kittens as well.”
He added that it was one of the most grueling hunts of his life:
“We got the dogs on them and I’ve been through some tough training camps, brother, but this hunt beat me up bad… the cat itself was at 9,600 feet, and I don’t know if anyone knows anything about altitude, but you’re sucking air up that high.”
But worst of all, the harassment has been unbelievable, coming from people with no knowledge of hunting, mountain lions, or conservation.
And like a true hunter, he’s going to eat the meat…. yes, you can eat mountain lion. It’s kind of like a super lean pork, mild in flavor, and it responds pretty well to seasonings and marinades.
“This was completely legal. CPW came down and took the cat in for me, I took the meat in and got it processed, I’m gonna eat that cat.
I can’t believe that going on a legal hunt, doing something legal, by the book, they’ve had 200 calls to Colorado Parks and Wildlife trying to turn me in like I did something wrong. I did nothing wrong. Everything’s legal. The harassment…”
Stay strong, brother…
Derek also shared a follow up Instagram post thanking folks for supporting him
