A mountain lion that attacked a 5-year-old boy at Malibu Creek State Park near Los Angeles on Sunday has been euthanized, California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials confirmed.
Park rangers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies responded to the park area around 4:20 p.m. local time when a family called for help because a mountain lion had attacked their son during a picnic, Fish and Wildlife said in a statement.
The children in the group were playing at the family’s picnic table when the mountain lion grabbed the boy by the head and started running away with him.
The elders blamed the lion, so he released the boy. It then climbed a nearby tree, Fish and Wildlife reported.
The lion remained in the tree until the park rangers arrived. After consulting with CDFW officers, the lion was deemed a public safety threat and the ranger shot the lion.
The boy was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles for treatment and released Monday morning. He suffered significant but non-life threatening injuries, CDFW said.
As of this week, there have been two dozen documented mountain lion attacks in California dating back to 1986, according to the CDFW. Four of them were fatal.
The last fatal attack It happened in MarchWhen a mountain lion killed a 21-year-old man and injured his 18-year-old brother in rural El Dorado County, Northern California. That mountain lion was also captured and euthanized.
