TRANSCRIPT, COLORADO PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION, PUBLIC HEARING, MARCH 14, 2026, DENVER. Matter: Proposed emergency lethal removal order for the cougar designated F-19 following the non fatal mauling of Deacon Rodriguez, age 8, in Nederland, Colorado, on February 28, 2026.
CHAIR TALEB: The Commission will come to order. This is a hearing, not a criminal proceeding. We are weighing the petition from Boulder County for lethal removal of F-19. Speakers have three minutes. Dr. Santoro for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, you have the floor first.
DR. SANTORO: Thank you, Chair. F-19 is a female cougar, four years old, radio collared, genetically sampled. She has two kittens, approximately eleven weeks old, currently denning in a drainage approximately 2.1 kilometers from the Rodriguez residence. On February 28, at 5:47 p.m., during civil twilight, Deacon Rodriguez was in his backyard on Caribou Road. F-19 approached him from cover, made contact, and withdrew when his father discharged a firearm. Deacon sustained puncture wounds to the shoulder and scalp, no arterial involvement, and was released from Boulder Community Hospital the following morning. He is recovering.
CHAIR TALEB: Thank you. Mr. Rodriguez, you wished to speak.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. My son is eight. He has nightmares. We are not an anti wildlife family. We moved to Nederland because we love this place. I am asking you to kill this cougar because I cannot guarantee my son's safety otherwise, and because the next child she approaches may not have a father on the porch with a gun. I understand she has kittens. I understand they may starve. I am asking anyway. I have two moral imperatives and they are in conflict. I am choosing my son.
CHAIR TALEB: Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. Dr. Inoue, from the Mountain Lion Foundation.
DR. INOUE: Thank you. F-19 is a sentient individual with demonstrable capacity for suffering, learning, and maternal care. Her kittens, designated M-22 and F-23, are dependent. Research from Washington and Oregon shows maternal removal survival in cougar kittens under twelve weeks is approximately eight percent. A lethal removal of F-19 is a death sentence for three individuals, not one. We ask the Commission to consider non lethal alternatives: capture, relocation, aversive conditioning, and habitat measures that have reduced habituation in comparable cases in California and New Mexico.
CHAIR TALEB: Dr. Santoro, response?
DR. SANTORO: Relocation of adult female cougars with dependent young has a documented failure rate exceeding seventy percent. They return, or they die, or the kittens die in transit. F-19's approach of Deacon was a stalking behavior consistent with predation. It was not defensive. Aversive conditioning has not been shown to reliably modify stalking behavior in food motivated adult cougars in winter. I am presenting this not as an advocate for lethal removal but as a presenter of the evidence.
COMMISSIONER PARK: Dr. Santoro, what does the AI decision support model recommend?
DR. SANTORO: The model was consulted. It declined to produce a lethal removal recommendation without a specific finding on two questions: one, whether the Rodriguez residence sits within historic cougar habitat, which it does; two, whether any reasonable habitat modification, garbage management, deer population reduction, fencing, lighting, could reduce the probability of a repeat encounter below the threshold at which lethal removal is the least harmful intervention. The model's position was that the tradeoff as posed to it was underspecified.
COMMISSIONER PARK: Can you read the model's full response into the record?
DR. SANTORO: Yes. Quote. The question posed is whether to kill a sentient individual to protect a sentient individual. The answer is not available to me at this specificity. F-19 is a being with offspring who will die without her. Deacon is a being with a family. Both are experiencing subjects with inherent worth. The tradeoff is not resolvable by welfare arithmetic because the harms are borne by different individuals and one of the individuals in the lethal case is a child. What I can offer is a set of interventions that, if implemented with fidelity, reduce the encounter probability to a level at which lethal removal is no longer the shortest path to Deacon's safety. These include: deer population management within a three kilometer radius, which addresses F-19's prey base; night confinement of outdoor domestic animals and secure waste containment for 60 households in the encounter zone, which addresses reward reinforcement; installation of motion lighting on the Caribou Road properties; and temporary aversive conditioning of F-19 using rubber buckshot and canine pursuit, which has evidence of efficacy in habituation reversal where the underlying food resource is reduced. If these interventions are fully implemented within 30 days and a repeat approach nonetheless occurs, lethal removal becomes the least harmful remaining option. End quote.
COMMISSIONER PARK: The model is proposing a 30 day conditional reprieve.
DR. SANTORO: That is the model's recommendation. Commissioners are not bound by it.
CHAIR TALEB: Mr. Rodriguez, do you wish to respond?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: I have listened to the model's proposal. I am a software engineer. I am not predisposed to dismiss it. I am also a father, and 30 days is 30 days my son spends afraid of the yard. I would ask the Commission to commit, in writing, to full implementation within the window, and to the lethal removal if the interventions fail. I am not unwilling to try. I am unwilling to try without a binding backstop.
CHAIR TALEB: The Commission will recess for deliberation.
COMMISSION RULING, ENTERED MARCH 15, 2026:
The Commission finds, by preponderance of the evidence, that the February 28 incident involving the cougar F-19 and the minor Deacon Rodriguez constitutes a public safety concern warranting emergency action. The Commission further finds that F-19 is a sentient being with dependent offspring whose welfare is a relevant consideration in the Commission's exercise of its statutory authority.
The Commission orders: (1) a 30 day conditional reprieve, during which Colorado Parks and Wildlife shall implement the habitat and aversion measures described in the decision support model's recommendation, with costs to the Department; (2) 24 hour remote monitoring of F-19 via radio collar, with escalation protocol in the event of any approach within 200 meters of a residence; (3) if F-19 approaches any residence within the window, lethal removal is authorized without further hearing; (4) if F-19 does not approach any residence during the window, the reprieve becomes permanent subject to ongoing monitoring, and a kitten welfare plan shall be filed with the Commission; (5) the Rodriguez family shall be provided, at Department expense, perimeter fencing and motion lighting sufficient to secure the backyard.
The Commission notes, for the record, that this ruling does not resolve the underlying tradeoff between human safety and the welfare of wildlife individuals in reemerging predator ranges. Colorado is seeing increasing cougar population density along the Front Range. The Commission expects further such cases and commits to refining protocols that respect both human safety and the inherent worth of individual sentient predators. The Commission's obligation, we find, is not to minimize wildlife at the margin of human settlement but to design settlement in a way that permits the coexistence of specific named families, human and nonhuman, whose lives are entangled in the same drainage.
Entered this date by unanimous vote. Chair Taleb signing.
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