A family camping trip took a turn after an 8-year-old child was attacked by a cougar in Washington’s Olympic National Park on Saturday, officials say.
The child and their mother were camping in the Heart O’ the Hills area at Lake Angeles when the cougar attacked, according to a news release from the National Park Service.
Park personnel said they quickly responded after the attack was reported at 6:30 p.m.
The next morning at around 5:00 a.m., park officials and wildlife experts trained to track cougars were dispatched “to the cougar’s last known point at Lake Angeles,” the release said.
The child survived the scary incident after the cougar “abandoned its attack” when the mother began yelling and screaming at the animal, the park service said.
The child suffered minor injuries and was transported to a local hospital to be evaluated. The family was escorted back to the trailhead by dispatched park personnel, park officials said.
“Due to the extreme nature of this incident, we are closing the Lake Angeles area and several trails in the vicinity … until further notice,” said Olympic National Park wildlife biologist Tom Kay in the press release. Those trails include the Lake Angeles Trail, the Heather Park Trail, the Switchback Trail and the Klahhane Ridge Trail.
If the cougar is located, it will be “euthanized and removed from the park for a necropsy,” park officials said.
The park service said cougar attacks on humans are “extraordinarily rare,” but if you encounter one, you should “not run because it could trigger the cougar’s attack instinct.”
“People should group together, appear as large as possible, keep eyes on the animal, make lots of noise and shout loudly,” it added.
Wildlife officials said after a separate attack last year that there have only been about 20 cougar attacks across Washington state in the last century, per KIRO 7 News.
In that incident, a 9-year-old girl in Washington state had to fight off a cougar after it attacked her while she was playing hide-and-seek with two other children in the woods, Fox News reported in May 2022.