Cougar Theory Is Questioned as Search for Boy Continues

Trackers cast doubt Wednesday night on the theory that a cougar might have snatched a 3-year-old boy missing for five days when they reported that what looked like the boy’s footprints were actually bear tracks.

But the trackers confirmed a set of prints near the bear tracks on a steep, rocky mountainside were made by a mountain lion, Larimer County Sheriff Sgt. Justin Smith said. And a boot print still thought to be Jaryd Atadero’s was found nearby.

“It makes this lead a little more suspect,” Smith said of the tracks.

Smith, however, said an attack by a mountain lion couldn’t be ruled out in the boy’s disappearance. Jaryd was with a group of hikers in rugged Poudre Canyon on Saturday when he became lost.

“It’s still the only lead we have with any type of evidence,” Smith said of the tracks.

The boy’s father, Allyn Atadero, 41, said that thought doesn’t make it any easier.

“It’s just something that could be a conclusion, but at the same time it’s something I hope didn’t happen,” Atadero said. “You would think there would be something, a shoe or blood.”

Smith said the search in the canyon, about 20 miles west of Fort Collins and about 80 miles northwest of Denver, would be significantly scaled back. Sixty-nine people were combing the mountainsides Wednesday, but only 12, including four people with two tracking dogs, will go out today.

The search area was extended Wednesday to about 1,000 yards on each side of the trail where the boy was last seen. It initially covered about 100 yards on each side. Searchers also went 3 miles farther up the trail.

A 10-year-old Lakewood boy was killed in 1997 by a mountain lion in Rocky Mountain National Park and an 18-year-old man died in 1991 in a similar attack near Idaho Springs.