LOCAL

No more llama drama: City captures Bobcat Ridge llama

Cassa Niedringhaus
The Coloradoan
A llama that had been wandering Bobcat Ridge Natural Area for months was captured Sunday, Dec. 3, 2017.

A wayward llama's six-month reign of the area foothills has come to an end.

On Sunday, city of Fort Collins Natural Areas staffers announced the capture of the llama that has been wandering around Bobcat Ridge Natural Area since the spring.

"The elusive stray llama wandering Bobcat has been captured," they wrote on Facebook and Twitter. "Thanks to all of you who were on the lookout, and those who offered to help."

Hikers first spotted the llama at Bobcat Ridge in late May or early June. Since then, hikers have reported encounters with the occasionally aggressive, sometimes shy llama at the natural area west of Fort Collins. One affectionate visitor named the llama "Louise."

Natural areas staffers took to social media in mid-October with pleas for help reuniting the woolly creature with its owner after other attempts failed.

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At the time, Karl Manderbach, the resident ranger at Bobcat Ridge, told the Coloradoan that reports of the llama had started pouring in almost daily.

He said various rangers and staff members had tried to capture the llama, but it had wandered away before they could nab it. In one instance, he said, a local rancher volunteered to bring his llama herd to the natural area to see if the llama would follow them, but it didn't cooperate.

Since then, Manderbach said, he piled hay bales near Mahoney Park in the upper part of the natural area, where visitors had been spotting the llama. He topped the hay bales with a camera, with the hope that the llama would continue returning to the site and he could capture it with the assistance of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

On Saturday morning, however, the llama appeared in the parking lot and nibbled carrots that Manderbach offered. The llama wouldn't walk into a grassy corral, though.

It returned Sunday morning and finally followed Manderbach, who was toting a bucket of oats and carrot remnants from the previous day, into the corral. Manderbach posted a picture of the spotted llama Sunday.

The llama is currently shut inside one of the natural area's sheds because it tried to squeeze under the corral's fence, Manderbach said.

Several local wildlife sanctuaries are willing to take the llama in, and Manderbach has identified a local llama farm to check whether the animal has a chip, he said. So far, the llama's owners have not come forward.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to find her a new home," he said. "We don't have the facility to keep her here at Bobcat."