What happens when you come upon a feasting mountain lion? A Wyoming study tells the story.

Justin Clapp’s introspection about his own impact on mountain lions is partly what sparked a scientific examination of how the big cats respond to being bumped off carcasses mid-feast.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s large carnivore biologist, along with colleagues and fellow researchers, repeatedly displaced feeding cats — 26 individual research animals — while trying to answer questions about how, or if, lions selectively prey upon vulnerable, chronic wasting disease-stricken ungulates in the Laramie Mountains.

“From an ethical standpoint, when we collar animals, we are asking a lot of them,” said Clapp, who’s also a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wyoming. “We don’t take that lightly. We recognized that, if we were going to get to kill sites quick enough to get a CWD sampl