The decision to shoot instead of tranquilize a young bison that had thundered through Green Mountain area neighborhoods Saturday was not made hastily, Lakewood police said Monday.
“Every attempt was made to come up with some other plan,” said Lakewood police spokesman Steve Davis. “The buffalo was shot at the direction of the owner.”
For three hours, the yearling led police and wildlife officers on a chase after escaping an enclosure on the southwest edge of Green Mountain.
“There were so many people around, and it was so lost and so scared,” owner Mike DeBell said Monday. “It would have gone through anything just to get away.”
DeBell said he told police to shoot it before someone got hurt or it ran out in traffic.
Colorado Division of Wildlife officers declined to tranquilize it, saying they didn’t have jurisdiction since it was domesticated and not wild.
“It would have taken up to 12 minutes (for a tranquilizer) to have any kind of effect, and 12 minutes was a very long time under the circumstances,” Davis said.
Howard Zucker, through whose neighborhood the bison roamed, is among those questioning why the bison was shot.
The animal was cornered “and the police were standing around for an hour, and nobody was looking very panicked,” Zucker said. A news helicopter began hovering, and the animal bolted.
In November, DeBell added two bison to a cow herd he’s had in the area for 10 years.
The idea was to raise bison for the meat, which is how the errant bison ended up.
Now, DeBell says of bison ownership, “I’m not sure I will do it again.”
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
