Rare fatal attack by a mountain lion leaves one mountain biker dead and one in hospital with serious mauling injuries after incident in Washington State.

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As reported by Reuters, on Saturday May 19th two currently unnamed mountain bikers were attacked by a mountain lion (also known as a cougar). One mountain biker received large scratches and the other deceased mountain biker was dragged back to the animal’s den.

The bikers were riding together on a backwoods trail near North Bend in Washington State at around 11am and unwittingly rode into the territory of the mountain lion.

The first mauled mountain biker called 911 and said “Can you hear me? Help!” but then hung up before any further information could be gleaned.

The police eventually found out where the incident took place (details of how they found out are scant at the moment). They came across the victim’s bike and from there ventured into adjacent woodland where they encountered the cougar standing over the biker’s body.

King county sheriff Sergeant Ryan Abbot: “He or she, I don’t know if the cougar was a male or female, had the body of the victim down in his den.”

One of the police officers fired a gun at the cougar, which sent it scarpering into the woodland.

Officers from the State Fish & Game Dept later tracked the mountain lion down with dogs and killed it.

The surviving mauled cyclist was taken to a hospital in Seattle with serious but not life endangering injuries.

Cougar attacks are very rare. This was only the second ever deadly attack in Washington State in the last one hundred years.