The man who died after being attacked by a mountain lion in California is named Taylen Brooks.
Taylen’s brother Wyatt Brooks, 18, was also injured but survived and is recovering, according to the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.
The siblings were hunting for antlers in a remote part of Georgetown, California, when they were attacked.
Wyatt called 911 on Saturday 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 during the attack – the first fatal attack by a mountain lion in two decades.
The man who died after being attacked by a mountain lion is named Taylen Brooks
Brooks’ brother Wyatt Brooks, 18, (right) was also attacked but survived and is recovering, according to the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office
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.
Police Taylen’s lifeless body was dragged to another location by the mountain lion while his brother sought help.
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.
The last time a mountain lion killed someone in the El Dorado County area was in 1994 when the mutilated body of marathon runner Barbara Schoener was found on the remote trails in the Auburn Lake area.
The 40-year-old schooner was attacked by a mountain lion that bit her neck and crushed her skull, according to the LA Times. The cougar dragged her partially eaten body about 300 feet and then buried it under leaves.
Wildlife experts told the publication that mountain lions hide their prayers and return when they are hungry.
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 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.