Ex-NFL player tracks and kills mountain lion terrorizing Colorado community: 'It beat me up bad'

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Ex-football player Derek Wolfe kills menacing mountain lion with bow and arrow

 Former NFL player Derek Wolfe shares how he tracked and killed a mountain lion that was killing dogs and deer in Colorado on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

Former Denver Broncos defensive lineman Derek Wolfe tracked and killed a 200-pound, 8.5-foot mountain lion that was terrorizing a Colorado community with nothing but a bow and arrow. 

Wolfe said the huge animal had been "wreaking havoc" in a rural neighborhood and had already killed two dogs. 

"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 on "Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Derek Wolfe tracked down a mountain lion in Colorado.   (iStock)

"So 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 somebody's house. And then we followed those tracks up to his porch. It was up on this woman's porch, living underneath of her porch, even. And when we had talked to the landowner, they said, ‘Hey, we have house cats. And the cats are acting weird.’" 

Wolfe told host Tucker Carlson he took hunting dogs with him to track the animal and hiked over 9,600 feet to kill it. 

"I've been through some tough training camps, brother, but this hunt was –  man – it beat me up bad. I was beat up bad. I'm all cut up and scraped up. I was in full-body cramps [and] barely made it up there," he said. 

Wolfe estimates the lion weighed 200 pounds and stood almost 8.5 feet tall. 

"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."

MAN STALKED BY MOUNTAIN LION ON UTAH TRAIL, VIRAL VIDEO SHOWS

The Superbowl 50 champion shared that he has received some backlash over the kill but reiterated it was entirely a "legal hunt." 

This Monday, Jan. 13, 2020 photo from video provided by Chris Bruetsch shows five California mountain lions seen together on home surveillance video at Breutsch's home in Pioneer, Calif. The rare gathering of the notoriously solitary big cats was recorded in the home surveillance video at the rural residence in the edge of the El Dorado National Forest east of Sacramento. A California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman called the images "extraordinary."  ((Chris Bruetsch via AP))

CPW told the Denver Post Wolfe is a licensed hunter who is in good standing with the state. 

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Mountain lion season runs from November 28​​, 2022 – March 31, 2023, according to CPW. More than 2,000 hunters participated in last year's season.