Oregon wildlife officials with guns and dogs are preparing to search for a cougar believed to have killed a woman on rugged terrain near Mt Hood.
Brian Wolfer of the state wildlife department said if a cougar is tracked down, officials will kill it and then check for a DNA match with DNA left on hiker Diana Bober, 55, whose body was found Monday almost two weeks after she was last heard from.
Wolfer acknowledged that other cougars might be killed, but said killing and testing is the only option and that capturing a mountain lion in the steep terrain isn’t an option.
Bober’s death marked the first fatal attack by a wild cougar in Oregon and the second in the Pacific Northwest this year.