35-year-old Mark Reynolds was attacked and half-eaten by a mountain lion, while he crouched to fix his bicycle along Cactus Ridge Trail on January 8, 2004. The same day, the same cougar attacked Anne Hjelle, who was rescued. Reynolds’s family sued Orange County, California, but dropped the suit in the face of pressure from Reynolds’s fellow cyclists, who were worried that the lawsuit would provoke the county into prohibiting wilderness cycling. (Rachana Rathi, “Mauled Cyclist’s Family Drops Lawsuit”, LA Times, Mar. 29; Rachana Rathi, “Fatally Mauled Biker’s Parents Sue O.C.”, LA Times, Mar. 26; LA Times Editorial, “Joy, and Danger, of Wilderness”, Mar. 27; another website summary of lion attacks; Dan Koeppel, “The jaws of death”, Mountain Bike, Summer 2004). Wildlife officials destroyed the cougar responsible for the attacks, but California law otherwise prohibits hunting or killing mountain lions.
Cougar attack lawsuit dropped
35-year-old Mark Reynolds was attacked and half-eaten by a mountain lion, while he crouched to fix his bicycle along Cactus Ridge Trail on January 8, 2004. The same day, the same cougar attacked Anne Hjelle, who was rescued. Reynolds’s family sued Orange County, California, but dropped the suit in the face of pressure from Reynolds’s […]
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