Mountain Lion Suspected Of Attacking Boy In Los Peñasquitos Canyo

Speaker 1: 00:00 A trail in Rancho Penasquitos Canyon remains closed today until state officials deem the area's safe. A four year old boy is recovering from being attacked by a mountain lion while hiking the trail with his family. On Monday. Yesterday, officers from the state fish and wildlife department killed a mountain lion they encountered in the area and they're now working to determine if it's the animal that attacked the boy, the attack. Renewed questions about how safe San Diego's hiking trails and canyons are joining me as Captain Patrick, fois spokesman for the California Department of fish and wildlife captain for welcome to the program. Thank you, Marie. How will you determine if this was in fact the lion that attack the boy? Speaker 2: 00:42 We have the, uh, some evidence in hand right now. It's actually in Sacramento in our lab, in our folks had come in early today to get started on it. The evidence that the officer's collected in the field on Monday. Uh, we're in the, in the form of the, the sub samples from the carcass itself, the lion carcass, but also the, the boys clothing. And we actually went to the hospital and collected bandages from the boy that were applied immediately after the attack. And what we're hoping to do is use DNA evidence in DNA analysis to match the two. So we look for skin, literally skin samples from the claws of the mountain line itself. And we also look for a Mountain Lion Dna from the saliva. The epithelial cells are called from the inside of the mouth of the animal as it bit onto the boy. And we tried to bandit, uh, collect the bandages from those bite wounds and compare the two and see if we can match them up. Speaker 1: 01:42 What made officials think this was the right mountain lion? Speaker 2: 01:46 Well, they had a report of an amount line attack and they called nine one one. The fire department responded right away and of course begin first aid treatment for the little boy and got him transported to the hospital. Our folks arrived not that long after and went out to the area where the attack had been reported and immediately noticed mountain lion tracks. That was a clear indication that there's a really good chance that this was a legitimate attack. We have a lot of, um, illegitimate attacks, uh, reported to us over the years. So this one looked like it was legitimate. Uh, at about not long after a mountain lion actually approached the wildlife officers who were there conducting the investigation and it exhibited no fear of people and it walked right to them. So they put two and two together and they thought there's a really good chance that this is the offending mountain line. They made the decision to kill it right there to prevent that animal from attacking another little boy and also to collect the forensic evidence necessary to match the two, which is what we're trying to do today. Speaker 1: 02:53 Some people are asking, why kill? Why not capture and relocate that animal? Speaker 2: 02:57 Well, I think the more important question because I had been asked that question several times, but, um, I think, uh, in these kinds of situations, people tend to overlook what happened to this little boy. And they, um, you know more, it's, it's people who are sometimes we're concerned about the fate of the mountain lion is the fate of this little boy. Um, he, if you can put your yourself in the mind of a person as an adult, even who is attacked by an animal that is trying to kill in each you, I mean, that's a, you get a pretty visceral response and then extrapolate that to a four year old who was arguably, um, well unquestionably the most terrifying moment of his life. Um, he was viciously attacked, um, pretty severely injured on, on some severe scalp wounds. And ultimately, uh, I believe he's going to be discharged from the hospital today. Speaker 2: 03:47 So we're hoping that's going to be the case. Um, the point with the lion, um, two things we had to, we had to kill that lion to, in the interest of public safety so that it wouldn't go out and attack and potentially kill another little boy or, or anybody. Uh, and we also had to look to collect the forensic evidence that could present itself in the form of the clause in the skin cells that we were looking for. The, the question about relocation actually comes up. Um, but I think a lot of people don't really understand that to relocate an animal that has caused this type of trauma, you've got to find a place to put it. And I think a lot of people will say, well let's just put it in the middle of nowhere. But you know, I tend to ask them, okay, what name of county your name name is spot. Speaker 2: 04:34 Cause there's 39 million people that live in California. There's nowhere that is a place you could put a mountain lion that as attack somebody, especially a mountain lion that is known to range, you know, a hundred or more square miles and have it be a safe place that it wouldn't ever bother anybody again. So that just, that place doesn't exist in California in order or anywhere else in the United States. So that's, that's not an option either. Um, our primary interest right now is to try to take a, you know, horrible situation, uh, get some education about their, how to, how to best live with mountain lions. And then also we're doing our best to try to match that lion with the victim to make sure we got the right one. Speaker 1: 05:16 The news of this attack, you know, right in Rancho Penasquitos of course, which is in the city of San Diego. It spooked a lot of people. What level of concern would you advise people to have when they go hiking? Speaker 2: 05:28 Yeah, it's something that we, uh, the, this, this family cup, there was a couple of mixed families there. There's six adults and five kids. Um, they were doing exactly what we recommend people do. Uh, on any weekend day or any day you're out of school in the summertime on vacation or whatever, they, they brought their kids out to a natural area. They let them stretch their legs. They get them away from the computer screens. These are families who are doing everything right. They didn't do anything wrong to attract this lion. Um, I, I don't really change my recommendation for that from that perspective because the probability of being attacked by a lion is so remote. I'm, the last one was in 2014 what was kind of similar circumstances. But, um, if you, if you just look at the millions and millions of people who are recreating in the wild on, you know, every year in California, the probability of being attacked by that line, that's still very, very low. Speaker 2: 06:22 The much higher probability is being attacked by a domestic dog or even a person. Unfortunately. So we end in terms of mountain lines, we just recommend that people just take precautions to, um, they, they stayed together. I'm reasonably close by and let the kids know, you know, you don't want them let them stray too far ahead of you, but keep them within the group and to understand what to do if a mount lion does actually confront you or the group. So, uh, some of those recommendations are just standing talls shouting aggressively, raising your hands above your head or if you have small children, pick them up. Um, and if, if attacked, certainly fight back. Speaker 1: 07:00 Okay. Then, well, I've been speaking with Captain Patrick for, he's a spokesman for the California Department of fish and wildlife, and thank you very much. Thank you, Marina. I appreciate the time. Speaker 3: 07:10 [inaudible].