A 4-year-old girl is lucky to be alive after being attacked by a cougar during a family camping trip just east of Rexburg, Idaho.
The incident, which occurred in early August, lasted only a few moments as the girl was attacked, carried a short distance and dropped by the large cat when the girl’s family jumped into action and scared it off. The girl was taken to the Eastern Idaho Medical Center in Idaho Falls, where local authorities say she wasn’t badly hurt.
It was then that a Idaho Fish and Game senior conservation officer was contacted, who in turn made a call to local hunter Mike Pimentel, known to keep hounds specifically for cougar hunting. Pimentel and his dogs arrived to the campsite later that night, and at 2 a.m. the following morning the dogs treed the mountain lion only a short distance away from the site of the attack. A deputy from the Madison County Sheriff’s office then shot and killed the cougar.
We can be thankful Idaho is one of the few states that still allows hunting with hounds. Otherwise, the dangerous lion may have never been found and may have caused more devastating damage later down the line.
