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The state of California hadn’t seen a fatal mountain lion attack since January, 2004 in Whiting Ranch Regional Park until this past weekend when a 21-year-old lost his life after he and his 18-year-old brother were attacked in the remote Del Dorado National Forest.
Mountain lion attacks are exceedingly rare in California, and everywhere in the US for that matter, but California hadn’t seen any attacks since September 2022 in Pico Canyon Park in Los Angeles County. News of this attack has made major media headlines due to the rarity of the incident.
The two brothers were in El Dorado National Park which is southwest of Lake Tahoe. They were in the park to search for shed deer antlers when they were attacked in the middle of the day on Saturday afternoon.
The 18-year-old called 911 for help at 1:13 PM, according to ABC News, telling dispatchers he and his brother had been attacked by a mountain lion and that he had suffered traumatic injuries to his face. Upon arrival to Georgetown in El Dorado National Park, rescuers were able to find the 18-year-old within 21 minutes of his 911 call and a search began for his 21-year-old brother.
Additional deputies were called to the scene to help search for the missing brother as the two had gotten separated during the attack. With additional help, they found the missing 21-year-old with the mountain lion crouched between the deputies and the body.
The sheriff’s office said “deputies discharged their firearms in order to scare the mountain lion off so they could render medical aid” but by the time they reached him he was already deceased.
Afterward, a team of game wardens from California Department of Fish and Wildlife were dispatched and they worked with en El Dorado County trapper to capture the mountain lion. It was then put down humanely and DNA samples were taken from the cougar that was trapped and they matched the DNA samples from the attack, confirming they had caught and put down the correct cougar.
As mentioned above, this is the first fatal attack in 20 years (since 2004). Prior to that, the last fatal attacks occurred in 1994 when two such mountain lion attacks occurred.
This is, however, the second time in two months that an attack occurred on the West Coast. Last month, a 60-year-old woman who was mountain biking in a group suffered a severe attack near Tokul Creek in Washington about an hour east of Seattle.