A mountain lion attack in Washington State left one man dead and a second wounded Saturday.
The two men were mountain biking through a remote forest area in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains some 30 miles east of Seattle on Saturday, when they spotted a mountain lion trailing them.
Despite attempts to scare the animal away, the mountain lion lunged at the two men, prompting one of the two victims to strike the lion with his bike, AP reported.
While the blow temporarily stunned the animal and caused it to flee, it later returned once the two men got back on their bikes.
In the second attack, the mountain lion bit one man in the head, thrashing him from side to side. When the second victim attempted to flee, the animal dropped the man it had been holding in its jaws and pursued the second bicyclist.
The animal ran down the second biker and mauled him to death. The lion then carried off the man’s remains to his den, said Ryan Abbott of the King County sheriff’s office.
“They did everything they were supposed to do,” Abbott said on Sunday. “But something was wrong with this cougar.”
The surviving biker managed to call 9-1-1 for help, and was airlifted to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center for treatment.
Authorities discovered the mountain lion with the victim’s remains, using tracking dogs to hunt down the animal. The mountain lion was then shot and killed on the scene.
The man killed by the mountain lion has been identified as a 32-year-old Seattle resident. The survivor has been identified as a 31-year-old man from Seattle. Authorities have not yet released the names of the two mountain bikers.
This weekend’s attack is believed to be the first fatal attack by a mountain lion on humans since 2008, though mountain lions often hunt livestock.