Residents of the tiny Park County community of Clark, Wyoming, are accustomed to wildlife, including grizzly bears, but when a mountain lion started hanging around, Bridget Gallagher decided to take her son’s advice and buy a hunting tag.
Her son, Cecil Gallagher, is a mountain lion hunting guide with hounds. He’s also the oldest of her nine children — eight sons and a daughter — who range in age from 16 to 30.
Bridget and her husband also have four grandchildren “and another one on the way,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
After several failed attempts to find the big cat, Cecil and Bridget went out Tuesday evening, and one of his Matthes lion hounds caught the scent.
The mountain lion was soon tamed, and Bridget dropped it with her rifle.
It was her first mountain lion.
“Before that, I had never even really seen a mountain lion in person,” Bridget said.
Cecil owns Downtimber Taxidermy Studio in Cody and plans to do a full-body mount of the mountain lion for his mom.
Seen in the Daylight
The family runs Gallagher’s Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch, a popular attraction this time of year.
In years past, they had problems with grizzly bears coming in to gorge on corn, raising concerns about human safety.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, along with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, USDA Wildlife Services, and Defenders of Wildlife, pitched in to build an electric fence around the maze in 2024.
It worked, Bridget said. Grizzlies are still in the general area, but they steer clear of the corn maze.
When the mountain lion showed up, it raised some eyebrows in the community.
“People around us were seeing it, including in the daylight,” Bridget said.
One of their neighbors, from whom they lease ground for corn crops, was concerned about his pets getting eaten, she noted.
Finally, Treed
Cecil said he started tracking the mountain lion last month. The first few outings were busts.
“It’s been so dry, my dogs were having trouble finding the scent. They need good moisture in the ground to pick up a scent,” he said.
A couple of times, he saw a fresh grizzly sign and called off his dogs.
“I like my dogs too much to want them to even get close to a grizzly bear,” he said.
When the mountain lion was sighted Tuesday afternoon, Bridget called Cecil and told him to hurry over with the hounds.
His wife and their two children tagged along.
At first, it seemed the hunt might end like the others. The hounds were milling around a patch of corn on the neighbor’s leased property.
The hunters thought the mountain lion was hiding in there, but the dogs couldn’t find it.
Finally, one of them locked onto the scent, and the game was on.
“We let the dogs do their thing for a while, then we approached, and my son told me where to shoot it (the mountain lion),” Bridget said.
“She was pretty excited,” Cecil said. “She was shaking quite a bit.”
The mountain lion was a roughly 75-pound female, thought to be about 3 years old.
‘That’s Not A Very Big Cat, Grandma’
Bridget was thrilled to have her son, daughter-in-law, and two of her grandchildren there for her successful hunt.
Her grandson Wyatt, 3, was nonchalant.
“He’s been around his dad’s taxidermy shop and seen lots of mountain lions,” she said.
“He told me, ‘That’s not a very big cat, Grandma,'" she added.
She didn’t let her grandson’s remark throw her off.
“I told him, ‘If your dad can’t make a mount of that, do you think you could?’ and he told me, ‘Yeah, I think I could do it,’” she said.
Cecil said he’s looking forward to preparing his mom’s trophy.
We’re going to do a life-sized mount. She says she wants to display it in her house,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
