‘I’m gonna eat that cat’: Ex-NFL star Derek Wolfe says he drew flak after killing mountain lion legally
COLORADO: Derek Wolfe, a former Denver Broncos defensive lineman, used a bow and arrow to track down and kill a 200-pound, 8.5-foot mountain lion that was terrorizing a Colorado hamlet. Wolfe claimed the massive animal had been "wreaking havoc" in a rural community, killing two dogs. Wolfe claimed to have received a call from a close friend and was delighted to offer assistance. "I got a call from a good friend of mine… and he called me and said, 'Hey, there's a cat up here. You want to come help?' And I said, Yeah, let's go," he explained Monday, January 23, on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'.
He added, “We get up there and the first thing we see is a full-grown mule deer that he had drug across the road, right across the street from someone’s house. We followed those tracks up to a porch. It was up on this woman’s porch, living underneath her porch even. When we talked to the landowner, she said that they had house cats that were acting weird and were wondering why. Well, it’s because you have a full-grown, 200-pound, 8 ¹/₂-foot mountain lion walking around across your front yard," as per reports from Fox News.
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Wolfe told Tucker Carlson that he tracked the animal with hunting hounds and went over 9,600 feet to kill it. “I’ve been through some tough training camps, brother, but this hunt beat me up bad. I’m all cut up and scraped up. I was in full-body cramps. Barely made it up there. The cat itself, when we finally got to it, was at 9,600 feet altitude. You’re sucking air up that high." "I was able to make a good shot, [a] good ethical shot, [and] harvested the cat and got him out of there and did everything by the book. This was completely legal. [Colorado Parks and Wildlife] CPW came down and checked the cat. And for me, I took the meat and got it processed. I'm going to eat that cat," as reported by The New York Post.
The Super Bowl 50 champion admitted to receiving some backlash for the killing, but emphasized that it was a "legal hunt." “I can’t believe what’s happening to me,” Wolfe said. “Doing something legal, by the book, they’ve had 200 calls to Colorado Parks & Wildlife trying to turn me in like I did something wrong. Did nothing wrong. Everything’s legal.”
Wolfe was a Broncos player from 2012 to 2019 and a Ravens player in 2020. He currently hosts a sports talk show on 104.3 The Fan in Denver.