14-year-old boy in playhouse shoots and kills mountain lion

A 14-year old South Dakota boy has gained notoriety for killing a mountain lion with a gunshot from inside a plastic playhouse after the lion had pounced after one of the family's pet cats.

"I was just sitting there and all of sudden one of our cats was back there too, and the mountain lion jumped on it," Dalton Shreff told the Rapid City Journal. "When I saw the mountain lion, I grabbed my gun quietly so I didn't scare it off, quietly loaded one round, looked through the scope and shot it. When I shot it, it jumped about 20 feet and then did a face plant."

The boy had planned to stake out the yard after the mountain lion had killed a goat, a duck, a chicken, and a different house cat on his family's property outside the town of Custer.

All of this occurred Sept. 20, but reporters are still reaching out to the Streffs, and the Associated Press on Tuesday posted a national story about the boy's feat. (Dalton is said to have passed a hunter safety course.)

The day began with the discovery of a dairy goat carcass behind the Shreff's home. Lisa Streff, a single mother of six, told the Journal, "We also saw a trail of destruction from the chicken coop with a dead cat, a dead duck and a bunch of chicken feathers."

These were the first animals the Streffs had lost to wild predators in 10 years, and Lisa Streff was worried about this cougar returning to continue its spree.

South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks sent an employee to investigate and he waited hours, but the mountain lion did not show.

Before dusk, Dalton, the youngest of his siblings, took refuge in the playhouse with a 30.06-caliber rifle.

"He decided he was going to go sit out there until 7, when he had to do milking chores," Lisa Streff said. "He said he'd go back out again at 5:30 in the morning if it hadn't returned that night. But even though it was a possibility, none of us expected the cat to come back that evening."

A shot ran out and Lisa walked outside and saw her son standing over a 70-pound female mountain lion.

"I am very proud of him," she said. "He's got a good eye, that's for sure. It was a very tough shot through trees, and he made a straight shot right in the heart."

The proud mother added, "I'm not one to hunt mountain lions, but when it's coming after your livestock, you either hunt it or suffer the consequences.

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