Mountain Lion Attacks Summer Camp Staff Near Hyampom; Second Lion Euthanized in Search
Stock photo of Mountain lion by Art G. (originally posted to Flickr as Those Eyes) via Wiki Commons.
This is a press release from the Trinity County Sheriff’s Department and CDFW:
On Saturday, June 14, at about 3:00 pm, a staff member at a summer camp east of Hyampom, California, was attacked by a mountain lion and sustained minor injuries. In an effort to ensure the animal had left the area, the property owner proceeded in the direction the lion was last seen. During the search, the property owner encountered a mountain lion and, fearing for his safety, euthanized the animal.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) was notified and responded to investigate the incident and collect the mountain lion carcass for testing. DNA analysis later confirmed that the euthanized animal was not the same mountain lion responsible for the earlier attack.
CDFW is actively coordinating with partner agencies to locate the offending animal. These efforts are ongoing.
Mountain lions typically pose little threat to humans, and generally avoid any human interaction. A person is one thousand times more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a mountain lion. People who live in mountain lion habitats can take precautions to reduce their risk of encountering a mountain lion.
If You Encounter a Mountain Lion
•Stay alert on trails. Keep pets leashed and walk with small children, don’t let them run ahead.
• Never approach a mountain lion. Give them an escape route.
⚫ DO NOT RUN. Stay calm. Do not turn your back.
• Face the animal, make loud noises and try to look bigger. If with small children, put them on your shoulders.
• Do not crouch down or bend over.Public Safety
The Sheriff’s Office is advising residents and visitors in this area to use caution following this encounter. Please avoid the area while CDFW searches for the offending animal and eliminates the immediate risk to the public. If you are hiking, recreating, or spending time outdoors, please remain vigilant and avoid traveling alone in remote areas if possible. Additional updates will be provided as information becomes available. Thank you for your cooperation and commitment to public safety.
Questions related to this incident should be referred to CDFW public information at (661) 428-9873.
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Talk about skewed statistics…..billions of people on this earth with lightening everywhere vs densely populated rural areas with a mountain lion population unchecked by scientific management measures,AKA,hunting.
if you’re in a ‘densely populated rural area’ (whatever that may be), always camp and hike with a friend, and make them carry 5 lbs. of bacon in their pack for ‘breakfast’.
Hyampom Rd, roughly 5 miles out of “town”, a famously densely populated rural area…
Did someone say Bacon…
Correction: I meant to say sparsely populated not densely.
DNA analysis to determine that “the euthanized (read: shot /dispatched) animal was not the same mountain lion responsible for the earlier attack…” in under one week??????
That’s faster than CSI! Impressive, if true, and it highlights the spooky fact that the offending animal is still at large. 😳
But, to call what the homeowner did to end the life of that mountain lion euthanasia is IMO gaslighting lies intended to soften the facts.
AI Overview
” No, killing an animal with a gun is not the same as euthanasia, though it can be a method of euthanasia if performed correctly by a trained individual. Euthanasia, by definition, is the act of intentionally ending a life to relieve suffering, and it should be performed humanely, with a focus on minimizing pain and distress. While a gunshot can be a means of euthanasia, it requires specific training and careful execution to be considered humane. “
Summer camp counselors get a lot of training in large animal euthanasia?
And also, armed summer camp counselors? Hmmmm
No. Nobody is armed there, except property owners. It’s also a ranch with hundreds of acres, so owner raises lots of animals and knows how to euthinuze large animals
Thank you
Learn about the ranch before you type a thought. Lol, you said “home owner” 😂
If you spend a lot of time in lion country, the odds of being attacked are greater than being struck by lightning. Watch those leaning maple trees shading springs.
One dog in front, one dog behind.
the press release was from trinity county sheriff office and ca. fish and game. I don’t think the lightening part came from the sheriff’s office
Words matter. This mountain lion was not “euthanized.” That means killing for humanitarian reasons. This animal was hunted and killed.
People think that mountain lions are always solitary but kits can stay with their mother a couple of years. Especially if the hunting’s good. So it’s possible that this is what it was. Inexperienced littermates not yet off on their own.
Yabut, I think in this case the lion was hunted and killed because the property owner feared for his life. After the first attack, the owner was not going to give the lion a second chance. It could have come back to their camp later and easily killed someone. I would not be surprised if DNA shows the lion was infected with rabies and was not in his/her right mind. They are very beautiful creatures, but they need to be treated with respect.
I’d like to know if the two mountain lions are related.
I am not sure Smoking. Maybe an update to the article will tell.
Related enough.
Maybe we should all go hunting mountain lions, and shoot them “in fear for our lives”.
So… the property owner intentionally went out looking for a mountain lion and found one. They put themselves in that position and it was a stupid and unnecessary decision.
“They need to be treated with respect”
That clearly did not happen here.
Exactly, with close to 200 children attending this camp, it definitely could be an issue
One behavior is that the lion will stalk you as you saunter down the trail. My strategy is I never hike alone, and I use trekking poles, hopefully, for added protection.
Another thing to keep in mind when in big cat country (and I have written this before) – never, ever bend down. Cats will often stalk you, sometimes for miles, awaiting an opportunity to strike. They fall on their victims from above and usually break the neck (sorry, sounds horrible I know). The good thing is, often their prey won’t know what hit them. In Asia, people, i.e. women, are vulnerable when planting paddy (rice) as they bend over continuously. Tigers – well, back when there were tigers – take advantage of this. When runners and hikers have been attacked or killed, it is speculated that they were often bent over tying a shoelace. And of course children being small are particularly at risk. My friend Coyote used to say that mountain lions were fascinated by children and horses. Evidence seems to show there’s truth to that.
Make yourself big. And stand tall.
If you survive, there are the horrible infections under the hundreds of stitches to deal with, requiring an out of the area wound specialist.
Meanwhile… Mountain Lion Attacks in California.
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March 1986 Caspers Wilderness Park Orange 5 yrs.
Oct. 1986 Caspers Wilderness Park Orange 6 yrs.
March 1992 Gaviota State Park Santa Barbara 9 yrs.
Sept. 1993 Cuyamaca State Park San Diego 10 yrs.
Apr. 1994 Auburn State Recreation Area El Dorado 40 yrs.
Aug. 1994 Mendocino County Male 48 yrs. Nonfatal 48 yrs.
Dec. 1994 Cuyamaca State Park San Diego 56 yrs.
Mar. 1995 Mt. Lowe (San Gabriel Mtns.) Los Angeles 27 yrs.
Jan. 2004 Whiting Ranch Regional Park Orange 35 yrs.
Jan. 2004 Whiting Ranch Regional Park Orange 30 yrs.
June 2004 Sequoia National Forest Tulare 28 yrs.
Jan. 2007 Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Male 70 yrs.
Jul. 2012 Confluence of Shady Creek and Yuba River Nevada 63 yrs.
Sept. 2014 Cupertino Santa Clara 6 yrs.
May 2019 Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve San Diego 4 yrs.
January 2020 Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park Orange 3 yrs.
February 2020 Rancho San Antonio County Park Santa Clara 6 yrs.
June 2020 Blue Sky Ecological Reserve San Diego 4 yrs.
August 2021 Calabasas (Santa Monica Mtns.) Los Angeles 5 yrs.
May 2022 Big Bar (Trinity River) Trinity Female yrs.
Sept. 2022 Pico Canyon Park Los Angeles 7 yrs.
February 2023 Half Moon Bay San Mateo 5 yrs.
Mar. 2024 El Dorado County (Remote) El Dorado 18 yrs
Mar. 2024 El Dorado County (Remote) El Dorado 24 yrs
Sept. 2024 Malibu Creek State Park Los Angeles 5 yrs
Add
June 2025 Hyampom Trinity
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California had 4 deaths by lightning from 2015 to 2024.
California had 12 Mountain Lion attacks from 2015 to 2025
You compare deaths to attacks.
Seems like two very different criteria.
How many of those attacks were fatal?
The attacks you list also average out to less than one per year.
In that same amount of time, how many people were injured or killed by cars? Or guns?
Mountain lions, in the overall scheme of things, just don’t pose that big of a risk.
>”You compare deaths to attacks.”
True. I couldn’t find any real data on the non-fatal strikes by lightning.
I should have put that in my comments.
Web says that lightning strikes are 10% fatal. That might mean that there were 40 lightning strikes as opposed to 12 Mountain Lion attacks. But I dunno on that one.
If you live in a rural (or semi-rural) area… with pets, livestock, children… they are a real risk. Unfortunately I can’t find any consolidated data on the number of attacks on pets, livestock.
I think if the number of attacks on pets/livestock was reported… the number of Mountain Lion attacks would probably increase by 10 times. But again, I dunno, those numbers are kept hidden.
Then let’s just compare fatalities- of humans, factoring in pets and livestock gets wildly off topic and complicated.
Mountain lions are known to be responsible for three deaths in more than 30 years. https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Mountain-Lion/Attacks
This is compared to four deaths from lightning in 10 years.
And this is in a state of 40 million people.
If we want to spend our time coming up with things to be worried about, we have plenty to choose from.
Today’s headlines also include an attack from a delivery driver and a woman injured by a horse.
Just within the last month or so, there have been local deaths caused by traffic accidents, ATV accidents, drownings, and a rock slide.
Life will never be 100% safe. But, if we were to come up with a list of the top 20 things to be worried about, mountain lions still wouldn’t make the cut.
OK Candice, If you live surrounded by plaster and particle board Mountain Loins might seem irrelevant. However Mountain Lions, Bigfeets, and other Mountain men are what keeps my hands on my boomerang and shoe laces tight.
Yah see, chasing wild game, fetching water, and harvest wild leeks, puts me in prime danger from those nasty vermin.
Just last week while checking the trap line, one double backed on the Ridge and was about to ambush me, luckily I was down wind and caught his scent, threw ole boomer at its head, and cahpow, another rug, hat and scarf for winter.
So to all you city slickers, please enjoy the comforts and fear of lightning, and live the real problems of double back tracking cougars, bigfeet rousling, and voting. To the last real men from high country California…
I worry about them all the time, since I hear them every few weeks walking next my bedroom window
You couldn’t find any data to support your argument…so you went ahead and made it anyway. Classic Bozo science.
“Might mean” is fucking meaningless. “I dunno” is the only accurate statement in your comment–maybe just leave it at that next time.
IMHO: I dunno about responding to ABA.
There’s an interesting true story of a brain surgeon who was struck by lightning while using a phone in a phone booth while on vacation in Mystic, Connecticut. When he recovered a few hours later, he wanted to become a pianist, though he had only limited experience. He began piano lessons and, over time, became an internationally recognized concert pianist. His experience as a brain surgeon was wiped from his mind.
Two different numbers you’re trying to smash together to make a point. Also, consider the locations; most are in places over 200 miles from here, and much farther, and also in much more urbanized, populated areas. Also why not have a different statistic, like fire risk? Attacks per 100,000 and broken down to county levels? On the surface your list makes it look like cougars are death machines waiting to strike. Never mind that the average age of a wild cat is 8-13 years so 1/2 of your list doesn’t matter as those animals would have been long dead. So if you go back to 2012, 13 years, there have been a whopping TWO attacks anywhere near here and our local cat population is a lot higher than other parts of the state.
I’d be more worried about rattlesnakes, wild pigs, and yellow jackets. Those can give you issues every day in the hills.
Be more worried about your fellow humans
Absolutely. Humans are the most dangerous animals in the woods.
Yes! Humans. I fear for my life when I see them. Can I ‘euthanize’ them on sight too?
Leave the lions be. Relocate the humans.
Well… LA and SF are waiting for YOU !
Not sure I’ve ever heard of a mountain lion attack resulting in MINOR injuries? I’m most interested in this part of the story. Was ithe lion really attacking- or just surprised? Did they fight it off and how? Not doubting the story just interested in how it went down…And here’s some advice- Mountain lions are all around you always…checking you out and calculating if your meat is worth the trouble. They are always hungry and always assessing food sources. They are very very sneaky and quiet. If you see one it means that it let you see it- it has decided to not eat you. Therefore the only time to be concerned about them jumping out and attacking you is when you don’t see one. Have a great day!
They grab you from behind sneak attack and break the neck so you actually never see them until they are on your back with jaws wrapped around the neck. Very smart way to kill something, victim doesn’t even know its already dead. That’s scary but hopefully relatively painless after the spine is disconnected. How many mountain lions do you think you have walked right under as they lounge on top of a 10 foot tall , 12 foot diameter old growth redwood stump deep in the woods. I would venture to say lots. I do believe most but not all Lion attacks are by younger lions who are reduced to inferior habitats with less food. For these lions, anything moving is a potential target. The big watermelon headed dominant males the size of African lions have the prime habitat with food sources galore. They will keep the younger lions out, who are reduced to poor habitat near urban areas, roadways, and hiking trails with little food except for humans, wandering dogs and cats, and occasional deer. A caveat to this is the very old lions who are also reduced to poor habitat after being displaced by younger, stronger, dominant lions. See the example of the 1 to 2-year old male and female siblings who attacked the old guy hiking at Prairie Creek. When the wardens shot and killed them, those lions hadn’t gone very far and were still lurking around the hiking trail at Prairie Creek, the only habitat the dominant lions allowed them to occupy. PS, the story suggests the Lion killed was not the one who attacked. I’ll bet these were 1 to 2 year old siblings who just got kicked to the curb by mom. Attacked first thing they saw movin, which happened to be human. They were also probably starving.
You are delusional. African lions weigh in at between 350 to 700 pounds, at least double the weight of our mountain lions.
Correct. Leonard Lee Rue III, in his Game Animal guides, lists a very big male cougar at about 275 lbs. Most are much lighter, females about 2/3 of a male. According to Rue, “The mountain lion was once the most widely distributed land mammal in the Western Hemisphere.” European invasion fixed that “problem” along with other “excess” animal populations, hemisphere-wide.
Euthanized? Can’t you just say ” shot and killed”?
You are many times more likely to be killed by another human being (including yourself) than by a mountain lion
It wasn’t euthanized, it was executed. I might have done the same thing. When I’m being hunted I hunt back.
I have had many encounters with the beautiful and magical mountain lion here in humboldt county over the past 50 years. I’ve talked to her, looked him in the eye and said “thank you”, sat down and said, “take me if you are hungry”, sang the old songs,and stripped naked and throwing my clothes away while most definitely being stalked. Not once ever did I think or believe or feel that I needed to kill the amazing living being that had decided to “check me out”. And not once, except that time when I stripped did I sense or feel fear from the extremely Rare and majestic lion. We 2 leggeds have a false sense of importance. And I’ll keep singing for the lion and the bear. The otter, salmon and eagle. And yes I will still hope against all evidence and reason that people grow up and become human beings on this mother earth leaving the societies of despair on the trash pile of history.
My heart is broken
When the bio survey team was exiting the magical, mystical Blue Creek watershed of recent wonderful news, we had reached the pick-up, the vision of aqua-blue crystalline waters and blooming native Rhodies seared in our memory banks, we were sated in wonder, it would have been enough. As we pulled out unto the dirt road, a really big cougar leaped across the road, almost over our truck hood. Sort of went frame-by-frame like LSD, tawny pale fur, extended legs, long tail took forever. Why then? Why us? Nobody else for a long way. Why jump in front of a lone pick-up? Why not wait? That was definitely enough.
Now people see big cats in their backyards. Is nothing sacred?
Likely wildlife highway crosses the road there. (Such is the case in my experience) Wildlife use the highways for getting from one food and/or social region to another — Foxes, Skunks, ‘coons, Bears, Deer, all use the highways.
you’re totally correct. Thing is, the road was so remote and rough with no permanent people, I assumed the big cat would cross right behind us, it was just a few feet and we’d be none the wiser.
So I chose to attach a sort of mystical confirmation and acceptance of our mission as exemplified by the feline semaphore we just received. This from someone who fears that religion may yet poison everything! Somebody said: “Human beings exude meaning like bees secrete wax.” That’s pretty close. Anyway, thanks for the input!
Thank you. This is the most beautiful and heartfelt comment I have ever read on this site.
Some grist for keyboard speculators…the carcass weighed around 30 lbs.
I mill it out to be a recently weaned adolescent or starving adult. When I arrived here in mid-70’s, the hills were full of pork and venison. Latent Neanderthal genes manifest
in beautiful hills way out west,
Sylvan hills I love the best,
Hunting skills put to the test
To garden skills I can attest
Times were great ‘till my arrest.
anyway, point being that production of meat, including birds like turkey and quail plus pigs and venison has declined dramatically in the last few decades. Yes, more predators will reduce prey species in the balance of nature, but I believe the base bio-mass of food and shelter plants has degraded seriously along with an increase in predators like coyotes, cougars, and possibly wolves. This puts immense stress on prey and predators alike, prompting desperate behavior from both groups.
>”… base bio-mass of food and shelter plants has degraded seriously…”
Biggest reason ? Forest Fires.
Lots of the interior landscape on the north coast has been reduced to snags.
Hyampom (and country) has been hit hard.
Where the fire got really hot, the organic material has been burned out of the soil.
Brush is struggling to get a foothold in those areas.
Wildlife… there is nothing to eat.
—
Oh well.
What is the source of that information (30 lbs) please?
Killed the wrong species.
I’d rather have lions in the hills than people
Straight up!
Was this ‘ ‘euthanized” cat male or female ? was it nursing ? How big, how old ?
Your in the mountain lions territory,what do you expect? I don’t think going out chasing a mountain lion and killing it is right or is a smart thing to do! Sadly enough it wasn’t even the same mountain lion! When folks head out to the mountains they should be aware of the wild animals that live in that area! Be prepared for anything and be aware of your surroundings.There are many precautions folks can take when hiking or camping! Of course there’s no guarantee someone won’t get attacked but at least try everything possible to hopefully prevent it from happening! Sorry someone was attacked!
Mountain Lions are still on the endangered species list. Anyone that lives in rural Humboldt or Trinity is well aware that they are in fact not endangered as of now. Their population has grown rapidly in the last couple of decades. If one is actively stocking a summer camp it needs to go. This guy did the right thing whether it was the same lion or not. Sometimes sending the message is just as good, these cats are smart and Apex predators I doubt it’s mate will be back.
Yes they were related. Long tail, 4 big paws with claws and ripping teeth. One swipe will take a full grown man to the ground. I have encountered several mountain lions. Never had to kill. Beautiful animals. This case could be an older cat having a hard time taking prey due to teeth wear or rabies. Btw. I witnessed a full colored chocolate cat with a friend. Most usually yellow.