A mountain lion that was euthanized by park rangers after it attacked a 5-year-old boy at Malibu Creek State Park earlier this month has been identified as a slightly underweight female, just over a year old.
According to necropsy results released by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife last week, the lion weighed nearly 50 pounds and had nothing in its stomach during the attack. The lion was between 12 and 16 months old and weighed between 3 and 5 pounds less than its age, according to authorities.
And she appeared to be relatively healthy. According to an agency spokesperson, the cat did not have rabies, mange or any “obvious abnormalities in internal organs that would indicate disease.”
Authorities have not released any additional information about the animal.
The lion attacked the boy while he was having a picnic on Sept. 1 with his family at the park. He was playing with a group of children in a designated picnic area when the big cat attacked him, authorities said. The lion tried to drag him away, but the boy's father fought the lion off until it let go, relatives told news station KTLA.
Arriving rangers found the cat in a tree and shot it with a gun, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Mountain lion attacks on humans in California are rare. The incident at Malibu Creek State Park is the 24th recorded attack in California since 1986, and four of them were fatal.
While the ranger's decision to kill the cougar sparked criticism online, experts said the action was not taken lightly.
“It attacked a small child and we were concerned that if we didn’t remove the animal, it could attack and possibly kill another child,” said California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Patrick Foy shortly after the incident.
Authorities cited a fatal cougar attack in 2004, when a big cat killed a mountain biker in Orange County and then nearly killed a woman hours later.
While Californians fell in love with the famous cougar P-22, a male who managed to coexist with humans while living in Griffith Park, the big cat was part of an ongoing study and had a collar. P-22 roamed the hillsides of residential neighborhoods over the years, but no attacks on humans were reported.
State wildlife officials are often faced with the difficult decision of what to do when wildlife becomes habituated to humans.
Earlier this year, a pack of coyotes tormented Mar Vista residents when the creatures set up a den in the neighborhood. The coyotes stalked children and likely devoured numerous pets as they claimed the neighborhood as their territory.
Residents said the coyotes became bolder and unafraid of their human neighbors. City officials warned residents not to create a hospitable environment for the animals and not to feed them, but the call to coexist with the animals made many residents feel like they were at the mercy of the coyotes.
Rebecca Dmytryk, co-owner of Humane Wildlife Control, a private pest control company, said earlier this year that the coyotes' actions appeared aggressive because parent coyotes are territorial and want to broadcast to other neighborhood canines that they have pups.
Wildlife visitors sometimes weigh 500 pounds, like a black bear named Victor, who frequented Mammoth Lake campgrounds. The bear was euthanized after he swatted a woman in the leg as she walked through a picnic area in August, according to a video of the encounter.
Officials defended their decision, saying the bear was considered a threat because it attacked the woman without provocation.
