Boy attacked by mountain lion in Cupertino discharged from hospital

A 6-year-old boy who was attacked by a mountain lion while hiking with his parents in Cupertino, Calif., is now recovering at home after being treated at a hospital.

The boy was released Monday afternoon after treatment for puncture wounds and cuts to his head and neck, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The boy was attacked as he and his parents were hiking about 1:15 p.m. Sunday in an open space preserve adjacent to a winery in Cupertino.

The boy’s parents were able to fight off the lion as it started to drag the boy into the brush, authorities said.

After pulling their son away from the cougar, the boy’s parents returned to their car but the mountain lion continued to follow them -- “extremely unusual” behavior, said Lt. Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Game wardens searching for the mountain lion camped out on the trail Sunday and Monday night in an effort to track it, officials said.

Using hounds to track the cat’s scent, authorities came across several criss-crossed tracks that indicated the mountain lion may be a juvenile, but none of them were recent, Foy said.

Armed game wardens, together with a U.S. Department of Agriculture tracker, briefly suspended their efforts Monday afternoon when their search dogs became exhausted. A second tracker and additional search dogs were set to join the hunt Tuesday.

“The current plan is to kill the lion in the interest of public safety,” Foy said.

Once the cougar is found and killed, Foy said, forensic evidence will be obtained from its claws and tested for the boy’s DNA. They will also check the mountain lion for rabies.

There have been 13 verified mountain lion attacks in California between 1986 and 2013 resulting in three fatalities, according to the Fish and Wildlife agency’s website.

In the last attack, in July 2012, a mountain lion attacked a 63-year-old man on a camping trip near the Yuba River in Nevada County, but the victim successfully fought off the animal.

Although mountain lions are “solitary and elusive” and tend to avoid humans, Foy said the public should be careful about potential encounters. About half of California is mountain lion habitat, and the animal is particularly prevalent in areas frequented by deer, its preferred prey.

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