A mountain lion that recently attacked a 6-year-old girl on a Santa Clara County trail near Cupertino, California, has been located and euthanized, wildlife officials confirmed this week.
The female cougar — estimated to be 2 to 4 years old and weighing between 60 and 70 pounds — was found in a tree Wednesday afternoon after a three-day search, according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Jordan Traverso.
Wildlife officials sedated the mountain lion and tested its DNA to confirm it was the one involved in last Sunday’s attack at the Rancho San Antonio County Park and Open Space Preserve, which left a child with minor injuries.
After the genetic profile came back as a match, Fish and Wildlife officials put the animal down.
The department “is actively engaged in mountain lion conservation across the state,” Traverso wrote in a statement Thursday. “However, public safety is a top priority. We made the decision to euthanize the lion because it was confirmed to have attacked a human.”
The girl and a group of nine people were walking in a brushy area where the trail narrows on the Wildcat Loop on Sunday morning when the mountain lion attacked, according to Korrine Skinner, public affairs manager for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.
Credit: Andrei Gabriel Stanescu/Dreamstime/TNS
Credit: Andrei Gabriel Stanescu/Dreamstime/TNS
Skinner said one of the adults shoved the large cat, while others scared it off. The girl was treated for small cuts at the scene.
Although the latest attack was the second in California in as many months — a mountain lion was killed in January after it attacked a 3-year-old boy at a park in Orange County — wildlife officials stress that such encounters are rare.
“The probability of being attacked by a mountain lion remains very low,” Traverso said. “In the entire state of California, which has approximately 40 million people, and a population estimate of 4,000 (to) 6,000 lions, there have only been 17 verified attacks since 1986.”
Prior to this year, there have been three verified mountain lion attacks of humans since 2012, according to Fish and Wildlife. The last fatal mauling was in 2004, when a cougar killed 35-year-old cyclist Mark Reynolds in Orange County’s Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park.
A mountain lion was also recently killed in the Santa Monica Mountains under a state law that allows lethal action if livestock or pets are attacked or if other deterrents have failed.
The death of that animal, known as P-56, prompted calls to end the permitted killing of the big cats.
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