A JOGGER who claimed he choked a mountain lion with his bare hands in a life or death battle actually killed an orphaned cub, officials have revealed.

Travis Kauffman was attacked last month while jogging at the Horsetooth Mountain Open Space by a three-month-old big cat.

The cub weighed about 34 to 40 pounds when alive, according to the final necropsy report conducted by a Colorado Parks and Wildlife veterinarian.

Officials believe the animal was male, though it was hard to tell, since its sex organs seemed to have been scavenged, reports the New York Post.

Kauffman, revealed that he battered the beast with a rock and choked it to death during a ten-minute “wrestling match”.

He told a local radio station that he saw the lion during his run down a trail on February 4 in Colorado.

Kauffmann said: "It finally stopped moving and then the jaws opened and I was able to kind of scramble back up the hill and get the heck out of Dodge."

Through it all, the 31-year-old trail runner said the cat remained eerily silent.

It was the first time Kauffman publicly recounted the ordeal that left him with 28 stitches and a reputation for toughness and bravery.

FIGHTING INSTINCT
He said: "I will never be able to live up to the reputation. The story is bigger than my puny form."

Kauffman said he was running a trail in the mountains west of Fort Collins, Colorado, when he heard pine needles rustle behind him. He turned to see the mountain lion about ten feet away.

"One of my worst fears was confirmed," he said.

That cat lunged, and Kauffman, who stands 5ft 10in and weighs about 70kg, raised his hands and screamed.

The animal locked its teeth on to his wrist and they tumbled off the side of the trail.

A wave of fear rolled over him, he said, and he worried that the animal's full-grown mother would join the attack to defend her offspring. But no other cat appeared.

Fear then gave way to the fighting instinct, he said.

I got my right foot onto its neck. And then I was able to get some weight onto its windpipe and that’s what eventually suffocated it.

Kauffman told KUNC radio: “I stopped and turned. In the back of my mind I always wonder if it’s something dangerous like a bear or a bobcat or a mountain lion, and in this case it was in fact a mountain lion.”

Kauffman grabbed a rock with his free hand and beat the cat on the back of the head. He also tried stabbing it with twigs, but nothing worked.

He added: "I knew with two pretty good blows to the back of the head (and) it didn't release, that I was probably going to have to do something a little more drastic.

“I got my right foot on to its neck. And then I was able to get some weight onto its windpipe and that’s what eventually suffocated it.”

Bleeding from his face and wrist, he jogged back down the trail, where he met other runners who got him to a hospital.

“One of the thoughts that I was having was like, ‘Well this would be a pretty crappy way to die,'” he said.

FATAL ATTACKS
His girlfriend, Annie Bierbower, said: "I was just thankful that he had his eyes and his fingers and all his parts, and it didn't look as bad as I maybe would have thought that it could.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers retrieved the dead beast. They said their investigation and a necropsy confirmed Kauffman's account.

Ty Petersburg, a wildlife manager for the agency, said: "Travis is a pretty amazing young man.”

Kauffman was the 22nd person attacked by a mountain lion in Colorado since 1990, Parks and Wildlife said. Three of the attacks were fatal.

Petersburg said officers set up cameras and traps in the area for several days after the attack. They saw no large mountain lions but captured two young ones in good health.

He said both are in a rehabilitation centre and the agency hopes to release them back into the wild.

Kauffman, an environmental consultant, described himself as an avid runner, cyclist and skier who has a pet cat at home. He said he doesn't plan to retreat from the outdoors.

He said: "I will go run those trails again. I will go with a buddy there."