One man died and another suffered ‘traumatic facial injuries’ after a mountain lion attack in rural California – the first in two decades.
The men, two brothers ages 21 and 18, were looking for antlers in a remote part of Georgetown, a small community 50 miles outside of Sacramento.
Around 1:13 p.m. Saturday, the 18-year-old called 911 to say he and his brother had been attacked, leaving him with “traumatic injuries to his face,” according to the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office. The teen added that he was separated from his brother.
First responders arrived on scene about twenty minutes later. They began treating the 18-year-old and started a search for the 21-year-old.
“Shortly after the search began, they located a male, and next to that individual was a mountain lion in a crouched position,” Kyle Parker, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told KCRA 3.
A 21-year-old man died and an 18-year-old man was seriously injured after a mountain lion attack in a remote part of California (animal not pictured)
The men, who were brothers, were hunting for antlers in a remote part of Georgetown, California, at the time of the attack.
Kyle Parker, a spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, said officers found the mountain lion over the older man’s body and fired gunshots to scare him off.
Officers fired shots to scare off the lion before discovering the older man was already dead.
The animal was captured by California Department of Fish and Wildlife rangers and trappers. The victim was euthanized near the scene of the attack, the sheriff’s office said.
“The mountain lion was sent to the CDFW forensic laboratory to obtain DNA information and general health of the lion,” the agency wrote.
Mountain lion attacks are extremely rare, and the last fatal encounter in the state occurred in 2004, according to CDFW data.
Since 1890, there have been fewer than fifty verified attacks on humans in California, of which only six were fatal.
What makes the attack even rarer is that in most cases the victims are alone.
“When you hear about things like that, you get a little tense,” local Daniel Lesher told KCRA 3.
‘I was surprised when I heard it was going after people. It’s not uncommon for them to go after livestock.”
The last fatal encounter with a mountain lion in the state occurred in 2004, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
In most cases when mountain lions attack, they are injured, stressed, or hungry (photo: A mountain lion warning sign on the Diamond Valley Lake Wildflower Trail)
Local Daniel Lesher said he was surprised to hear the lion was ‘going after people’ rather than livestock
The mountain lion involved in Saturday’s attack was euthanized near the attack site. The body was sent to a forensic laboratory for examination
The circumstances surrounding the attack are unclear. The sheriff’s office says more information will become available after an investigation.
According to the National Park Service, mountain lions are solitary animals that travel alone except during mating or cub season.
They are known as a keystone species, keeping prey populations in check and clearing invasive species.
In the cases where lions attack people, most are injured, stressed or hungry, the NPS says.
“A hungry, stressed mountain lion with only one good eye may, upon observing an abundance of slow, often inattentive bipeds on park trails, attack one of us humans, hoping for an easy meal,” the agency wrote on its website.