Allyn Atadero, right, is comforted by a family friend as he waits for word on the search for his missing 3-year-old son

October 7, 1999
Web posted at: 12:58 a.m. EDT (0458 GMT)

In this story: One theory: Tracks made by bear Couple sought for questioning RELATED STORIES, SITES

FORT COLLINS, Colorado (CNN) -- An animal tracking expert, two dogs and a small team of searchers will return to the rocky terrain above Poudre Canyon on Thursday, searching for 3-year-old Jaryd Atadero, who disappeared Saturday during a group hike.

The team will examine more closely reported animal tracks at the steep site in Roosevelt National Forest.

VIDEO CNN's Susan Reed talks with the missing boy's father (October 6) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

Another crew of eight searchers also will comb an area that has not been searched before, about eight miles away, eventually working their way toward the main search area.

The fifth day of searching for the child ended Wednesday night with no sign of him, and conflicting opinions about the tracks.

The weather could make Thursday's search more difficult: Snow is forecast.

Earlier, officials said searchers had found tracks that appeared to be a child's foot, knee and hand prints, ending with tracks of a mountain lion in an area so steep "dog handlers had to carry their dogs."

Atadero went missing Saturday while hiking with family and friends

But an animal tracking expert who went to the site later with searchers from Colorado's Division of Wildlife had a much different interpretation of the tracks: The suspected human tracks were those of a bear, he said.

"They believed what (the original tracker) identified as places that would have been a boy crawling up the side of the hill were in fact, in their opinion, bear tracks going up and down," Sgt. Justin Smith, a spokesman for Larimer County's Sheriff's office, told reporters.

Smith said the theory that the boy may have been dragged away by a mountain lion was still a possibility.

"It's not quite as solid as it looked this afternoon, however it's still a lead. And to be honest, it's one of the only leads we have right now," he said.

The search team will be looking "for anything dead up there and try to track back from there for any mountain lion or any other predator."

"If they track the cat down, they may put a radio collar on that cat and see where it goes from there, because one of the possibilities is if Jaryd was a victim of a mountain lion attack it would have dragged him back to the den," he said.

The missing boy was last seen Saturday wearing a hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants and a fleece jacket. He had been hiking with 11 or 12 people in a church group from Littleton, Colorado that included friends of the boy's father, who was not on the hike.

Searchers pick their way up a hillside as they continue to look for a missing 3-year-old boy near the Big South Trail west of the tiny mountain community of Rustic, Colorado

Smith said investigators also want to question two people -- a man and woman seen along the trail on Saturday between the ages of 45 and 60, possibly with a Golden Retriever -- to try to find out if they might have seen the boy.

The two are the only people known to have been in that region of the forest yet to be interviewed by investigators.

"Don't take this to mean they're suspects," Smith said. "I reiterate this is in no way anything suspicious. It's merely another witness we'd like to talk to. If they are out there, we'd like for them to give us a call."

Asked if kidnapping had been ruled out, he said, "Evidence we've had so far really pushes away from that."

The boy's father, Allyn Atadero, said he was still optimistic his boy will be found alive.

"You have hope until you have no reason to not have hope, and so far we don't have any reason not to have hope," he told CNN.