Mom fights mountain lion with bare hands to save 5-year-old, California officials say

A Southern California mom hearing a disturbance outside Thursday morning found a 65-pound mountain lion dragging her 5-year-old son across her front yard, wildlife officers say.

“She ran out of the house and started punching and striking the mountain lion with her bare hands and got him off her son,” Capt. Patrick Foy, a California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman, told the Associated Press.

“The true hero of this story is his mom because she absolutely saved her son’s life,” Foy said. The boy is hospitalized in stable condition with injuries to his head and torso.

A wildlife officer later shot and killed the mountain lion after finding it hiding on a corner of the Calabasas property, the department said in a press release.

DNA tests confirmed it was the same mountain lion that attacked the boy, the release said.

Two more mountain lions arrived a few minutes later. One, identified as P-54, had a collar, while the other did not. The officer tranquilized the uncollared mountain lion.

GPS tracking shows P-54 has left the neighborhood, wildlife officials said. The slain mountain lion was one of its cubs. The surviving cub has been relocated near P-54

“There is much angst with people who are furious that we killed the mountain lion responsible for attacking that boy,” Foy told the Los Angeles Times.

“It was trying to kill and eat that child, unfortunately,” Foy said. “Many members of the public don’t want to ever think of a human being as a prey item. It does happen sometimes.”

It was the first mountain lion attack on a human in Los Angeles in 25 years, the agency said.

This story was originally published August 29, 2021 at 7:29 AM with the headline "Mom fights mountain lion with bare hands to save 5-year-old, California officials say."