Cougar Killed Near Scene of Mauling : 5-Year-Old Victim Taken Off Critical List in Orange County

A male mountain lion, believed to be the animal that attacked and gravely injured a 5-year-old girl in a wilderness park east of San Juan Capistrano, was shot to death Monday morning near the spot where it had carried off the child.

Rangers said the animal appeared to have been in a weakened condition, which may have accounted for Sunday’s rare attack.

A spokeswoman for Mission Community Hospital in nearby Mission Viejo said Monday that the girl, Laura Michele Small of El Toro, was taken off the critical list after 12 hours of surgery to cleanse and close puncture wounds in her head and neck. Laura was listed in serious condition with stable vital signs.

“Whether there will be any damage (to her brain or eyes) remains to be seen,� the spokeswoman said.

The man who rescued Laura from the mountain lion’s jaws gave the first detailed account Monday of his confrontation with the animal.

Gregory Ysais, 36, an electronics technician from Mission Viejo, said that he, his wife and 11-year-old daughter were finishing a hike along a nature trail at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park when he heard a woman crying for help.

He said he sprinted about 50 yards down a road, across a steam and up a trail and found Laura’s mother, Susan, in a clearing.

“She was screaming that a mountain lion had dragged her baby off. She said, ‘It went in there.’ I ran off the trail and into the thick brush and through some cactus until I ran right into where I found the cat,� Ysais said.

He said that the sight of the cougar had cost him a night’s sleep.

“It had the child in its mouth . . . and was trying to keep a good grip on it. The child was squirming. I could see the head was cut pretty bad. She was quite bloody. . . . All I could think of was getting the child back.�

Ysais said he tore a branch from a tree and began swinging it over the cougar’s head in an attempt to distract it. The cat, he said, propped itself up on one foreleg, using the other to fend off the branch.

“Eventually it got to the point that he dropped the child and I moved in and kept swinging at him until I could get between the cat and the child. . . . I yelled to the mother, ‘Pick up your child! Let’s get out of here!’ �

State and county wildlife officials said that when they located the cat Monday, they first tried to subdue it with a tranquilizer dart but apparently did not use a strong enough dose.

“After the dart was fired, he came out of the tree where the dogs had chased him and was fighting them and threatening us (the hunting party), so we had to shoot him,� said state Department of Fish and Game Capt. Rod Shackelford.

90-Pound Animal

Authorities said the cougar, estimated to be 2 or 3 years old, weighed only about 90 pounds; a normal male of that age should weigh more than 100 pounds.

Wildlife biologists and park rangers familiar with mountain lions said they believe Sunday’s attack is the first known incident in California in which one of the cats has attacked a human being. Wildlife authorities said that a survey of south Orange County last summer showed 12 sets of mountain lion prints. They estimated that between 26 and 35 adult mountain lions could live in nearby mountain ranges.

It had been hoped that the animal could be captured alive for study of its condition. Instead, blood samples were taken and a necropsy was to be performed to see if any light could be shed on what caused the cat’s behavior. Rangers said its paw prints matched the size and shape of those found at the place where the girl was mauled.

“Mountain lions generally hunt by night. There is plenty of natural game, from ground squirrels to deer, in this park,� said Senior Park Ranger Bruce Buchman.

500 People in Park

“Also, the cats are secretive and shy around humans, and there were about 500 people and all their people odors in the park when the attack took place in broad daylight,� Buchman said.

Greg Hickman, vice president of the Alliance of Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education--comprised of members of different wildlife groups involved in treating injured animals from 10 Southern California counties--said he believes the cat had been kept in captivity.

“I strongly believe that this animal had been captured by someone when it was small and then turned loose when it got too big to handle,� he said. “When it got back in the wild, it didn’t have the skills to properly hunt its natural prey. Furthermore, it had lost some of its fear of humans.

“When I heard of the attack, the first thing that struck me was that if it had been a normal male wild lion, the child would have been killed almost instantly.�