5-year-old suffers ‘serious’ injuries after cougar attack at popular California state park

The cougar was tranquilized by a ranger after it climbed a tree following an attack.

A 5-year-old boy is recovering from a cougar attack during a family picnic at a California park. The animal was euthanized by a wildlife ranger shortly after the incident.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) described the incident in a statement posted on its official Facebook page on Tuesday, September 3.

The agency said in a statement that California State Park rangers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were alerted to the cougar attack at Malibu Creek State Park at 4:21 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1.

A family of six adults and a handful of children from Woodland Hills were in the park at the time of the attack.

“The children were playing in the immediate vicinity of a picnic table where the family was seated when a mountain lion attacked the 5-year-old boy, causing serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” CDFW added.

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Multiple adults intervened and “massacred the lion” until it “released the boy,” the release said. Bystanders witnessed the attack and saw the cougar climb a tree, where it remained until state park rangers arrived on the scene.

CDFW conservation officers, National Park Service personnel, and Los Angeles Fire and Rescue also responded to the scene.

Wildlife officials deemed the cougar a “public safety risk,” and a ranger used a firearm to euthanize the animal. The child was airlifted to Northridge Hospital Medical Center for treatment of his injuries. He was released from the hospital early Monday morning, Sept. 2.

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According to NBC Los Angeles, Captain Patrick Foy of CDFW said the cougar grabbed the victim by the head.

The child’s aunt, who spoke anonymously, detailed the moments the child was attacked, telling KTLA: “Someone yelled the child’s name and the father started running away. The father grabbed the mountain lion with his hands and just fought. Then the mountain lion let go.”

CDFW noted that wildlife officers also contacted the boy’s family while he was in the hospital to collect evidence, such as bite and scratch wounds, as well as the clothes he was wearing at the time of the attack.

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“These evidence samples were confirmed as a DNA match by the Wildlife Forensic Lab in Sacramento,” CDFW said, adding that “CDFW and State Parks officials are grateful that the family is safe, the child is recovering, and no one else was injured.”

California State Parks is investigating the incident, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to PEOPLE.

According to the CDFW website, a cougar attack on a human occurs when “direct physical contact occurs between a human and a cougar, resulting in bodily injury or death to the person.”

The agency said there were just over 20 reported cougar attacks on humans in California between March 1986 and March of this year.

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