Young boy recovering from rare mountain lion attack

A 5-year-old boy is recovering after being attacked by a mountain lion over the weekend in Malibu Creek State Park.

The child was airlifted to a hospital for non-life threatening injuries, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to LAist. The mountain lion was considered a threat to public safety and was euthanized by California State Parks rangers.

But Patrick Foy, captain with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s law enforcement division, told LAist the attack is an exceedingly rare incident.

“Putting it into context, when you compare the probability of being attacked by a domestic dog, which is literally an order or two of magnitude greater than being attacked by any wild animal — bear, mountain lion, or coyote,” he said.

What happened

The boy was attacked shortly after 4:15 p.m. Sunday at the Tapia Park Public Use Area, near the intersection of Las Virgenes Road and Dorothy Drive in Calabasas.

A family from Woodland Hills, including six adults and several children, had been having a picnic. The children were playing around the table when the mountain lion attacked the boy, causing significant, but non-life threatening injuries, Foy said.

At least one of the adults charged the lion, including the father, who physically pushed the animal to get it away from his son.

"This family was doing everything right,” Foy said.

The child was airlifted to the Northridge Hospital Medical Center and he was released the next day.

Multiple people witnessed the attack and saw the mountain lion climb up a nearby tree, where it remained until rangers arrived and euthanized it a short time later.

Wildlife officials collected evidence from the boy’s bite and scratch wounds and flew them to a wildlife forensics laboratory in Sacramento. Those “conclusively” matched samples taken from the mountain lion.

“The fact that this lion came out from a densely covered area and attacked this young boy was horribly unfortunate and it was a traumatic experience, both physically and emotionally for the little boy and his family,” Foy said.

The bigger picture

It’s rare for mountain lions to attack people, but there’s already been one incident earlier this year.

In March, two brothers were attacked by a 90-pound male mountain lion in a remote area in El Dorado County. The 21-year-old was killed at the scene, but the 18-year-old brother was able to call 911 and survived.

This was the first confirmed death from a mountain lion attack in California since 2004, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“The most reliable way of knowing that you are in mountain lion habitat is if you are in a location that has a lot of deer,” Foy said. “Deer are preferred prey for lions, and any place you see a lot of deer, there's a reasonable chance you're going to be in the presence, at least in mountain lion habitat.”

The last incident in Calabasas was also around this time of year.

In August 2021, a 5-year-old boy was attacked by a young mountain lion near his home in the Santa Monica Mountains. The cougar was killed, and the boy reportedly recovered.

That marked the first human-lion incident in the area in more than 25 years, according to the Mountain Lion Foundation.

Over the past five years, there’s been five verified attacks in Southern California, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s running list, which was last updated in March.

You can learn more about what to do if you encounter a mountain lion here.

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