A stock photo of a mountain lion.Photo:Getty
Getty
A man was killed and his brother was injured on Saturday in what officials say is the first fatal mountain lion attack in California in 20 years.
“The reporting party suffered traumatic injuries to his face and was separated from his brother during the attack,” authorities said in the release.
El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office deputies and paramedics responded to the area and began to render aid to the 18-year-old victim.
“Additional Deputies began the search for the unaccounted brother,” the sheriff’s office said. “At around 1:46pm Deputies observed a crouched mountain lion next to a subject on the ground. The mountain lion was between the Deputies and the subject on the ground.”
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Deputies discharged their firearms, scaring the mountain lion off so they could render aid, but the 21-year-old was dead.
Sgt. Kyle Parker with the department told theLos Angeles Timesthat two game wardens with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and an El Dorado County trapper shot and killed the mountain lion. Parker said the animal’s body was examined to “figure out why the attack occurred."
The 18-year-old man has undergone several surgeries and is expected to make a full recovery, according to the newspaper.
The victims' identities have not been released at this time. PEOPLE has reached out to the sheriff’s office for comment.
Beth Pratt, the head of the nonprofit National Wildlife Federation’s #SaveLACougars campaign,wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter,that mountain lion attacks are “extremely rare.”
A 35-year-old man was the last victim of a fatal mountain lion attack in 2004, according to theCalifornia Department of Fish and Wildlife’s listof “verified mountain lion-human attacks.”
source: people.com
