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A cougar mauled a woman hiking on the Hunchback Trail in the Mt. Hood National Forest in the first-ever fatal wild cougar attack in Oregon history, according to state wildlife officials.
Diana Bober, 55, had been reported missing on Aug. 29. Her body was found Sept. 10 and a medical examiner ruled that her injuries were consistent with a cougar attack.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife Services forensic lab will test DNA samples to confirm that the animal responsible for the deadly attack was a cougar. Officials will try to locate and kill the cougar that mauled Bober.
"This is an unprecedented event in Oregon, we are asking people to avoid this area while we attempt to remove this cougar," Brian Wolfer, ODFW watershed manager said in a press release. "We don't know what risk it poses to the public."
Although this is Oregon's first-reported cougar attack in the wild, a cat living in captivity killed a woman in 2013 as she cleaned a cage at the former Wildcat Haven Sanctuary near Sherwood, Ore.
More than 6,600 cougars live in Oregon and they cause more than 400 complaints each year – but none have ever killed a person in the state before.
The attack, first reported by The Oregonian, has shut down the trailhead that leads to the trail where Bober was killed.
