U.S. Trackers Kill Cougar Suspected in Cyclist Attack : Wildlife: Large female mountain lion is shot near canyon where man fought off animal with rocks.

Federal wildlife trackers on Saturday shot and killed a female mountain lion believed to be responsible for attacking a bicyclist in the San Gabriel Mountains above Altadena last week.

The lion was chased up a tree by three dogs and killed by a single shot to the head about 4 p.m., a few hundred yards from where the bicyclist was attacked on a Mt. Lowe trail, said state Fish and Game Warden Mark Jeter. Trackers found paw prints in the area that appeared to match those found on the ground near the site of Monday’s attack.

“It’s a relief,” said Jeter, who was on the scene 30 minutes after the shooting. “It’s never good to have an animal dispatched like that, but when you have an animal that attacks a person. . . . We had Boy Scouts at 8 or 10 at night (Friday) roaming the place where the (cyclist) was attacked.”

U.S. Forest Service officials closed Mt. Lowe’s trails and roads Friday so the tracking team could intensify its search. But some hikers ignored barricades and warning signs, Jeter said.

On Monday, in an unprovoked attack, a mountain lion clawed and bit 27-year-old Scott Fike. Fike, who suffered bruises and minor cuts on his head, was riding alone on a Mt. Lowe trail when the lion started to lope alongside him. Fike said he ran down into a canyon and fell, scuffling with the lion until he fought it off with rocks.

“The weird part was a human was attacked, he fought it off aggressively as he’s supposed to do, and he was still attacked,” Jeter said.

In an attempt to entice the lion out of hiding, federal trackers late Saturday afternoon, left a deer--one they found dead on the road--at the same spot where the bicyclist was attacked. Meanwhile, with the hounds locked in trucks, the trackers searched the area for paw prints. When they returned to check on the deer, it was gone, with paw prints nearby. The prints were a match, and it appeared that the lion had dragged the deer into a canyon.

Trackers let the dogs loose. One picked up a scent, and the team saw the feasting mountain lion 300 yards away in a canyon bottom. The chase was on.

“Now, it’s just a race to keep up with the dogs,” Jeter said.

Within a few minutes, the dogs had the cougar up a tree. U.S. Department of Agriculture tracker Joe Bennett killed it with a shotgun.

The lion was unusually large for a female--74 inches long and more than 100 pounds, Jeter said.

Fish and wildlife biologists will do a necropsy on the mountain lion, trying to uncover clues as to what led to the unprovoked attack, Jeter said. The mountain lion apparently had not been nursing, had no cubs nearby and did not appear crippled, he said. Biologists also will check its claws for any of Fike’s tissue to confirm that it was the mountain lion in Monday’s attack.

Since 1919, state officials have recorded nine other mountain lion attacks on humans, three of which resulted in deaths. The latest attack before Fike’s was in December, 1994, when a 56-year-old woman was killed by a mountain lion at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in San Diego County.

Two weeks ago, game wardens unsuccessfully hunted a mountain lion in the foothills near La Crescenta that killed two dogs and came within 10 feet of people. Wardens do not believe the mountain lion that attacked Fike is the same one. Mountains lions are territorial and usually don’t wander more than several miles from their turf.