Former NFL player Derek Wolfe kills mountain lion in the name of ‘predator control’
Jenny Goldsberry
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Former NFL defensive lineman Derek Wolfe announced Friday that he’d performed “predator control” in killing a cougar in a Colorado neighborhood on Tuesday.
“Late Tuesday night I got a call from [a fellow hunter] to see if I wanted to stalk a giant Tom (male mountain lion) who has been wreaking havoc in a rural neighborhood,” Wolfe wrote on Instagram. “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.”
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It took the two a 2,500 foot hike up and a 9,600 foot hike down to finally track the cougar, all while being “exhausted, dehydrated, and cramping.” Wolfe was able to kill the big cat with a hunting bow.
“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,” Wolfe wrote alongside a picture of him holding up the cougar, which was just as tall as he is at six foot five inches.
Both companies behind Wolfe’s bow and arrow also shared Wolfe’s photo to their respective Instagram accounts to promote their products. His hunt comes at peak mountain lion hunting season: from Nov. 28 to Mar. 31.
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Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed to the Denver Post that Wolfe is a licensed hunter in good standing, and the department had received his report of the kill. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed cougars from the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Wildlife in 2018.
Wolfe played for the Denver Broncos when the team won the Super Bowl 50 Championship. He played most recently for the Baltimore Ravens but retired last year because of a hip injury.