News
Hundreds Pay Respects to King

Three Trails in 30 Years

Around the Area

Briefs

Range of Projects Displayed at Expo

Estancia Teen Gets Worldwide Education

CNM To Offer Courses in Edgewood

DWI Memorial Needs Help To Stay Open

Bidding Process To Start on Arts Center

Mother of 5 Arrested in Fatal Stabbing

More
News

HOME	CLASSIFIEDS	OBITUARIES	SPORTS	OPINION

Thursday, May 22, 2008

5-Year-Old Attacked by Big Cat

By Jeremy Hunt
Mountain View Telegraph
      It was a scream, his father said later, that you never want to hear.
       Five-year-old Jose Salazar Jr. walked around a bend as the family was hiking Saturday evening on the Balsam Glade Nature Trail in the Cibola National Forest. He was momentarily out of sight of his family, 20 to 30 feet behind him, when he screamed.
       A big cat, most likely an immature cougar, had tackled Jose and was batting at him.
       “Basically the kid saw the animal,” said State Game and Fish spokesman Ross Morgan, “he took off running, is what he told us … all predators assume something running is prey.”
       As Jose's parents rushed forward, the cat picked the boy up by the neck, dragged him down the mountainside and was only stopped by a fallen tree.
       The cat couldn't lift Jose over it. Jose's father was running, almost tripping every other step, and jumped forward. He was about to reach the cat when it leapt out of the way.
       Jose Salazar Sr. ripped up his shirt to bandage his son and tried to hide the boy's wounds from his wife.
       “I held him in a way so she couldn't see his scalp was half hanging off. I didn't tell her because I was trying to stay calm,” he said.
       The Salazars, whose son was flown by helicopter from the Sandia Ski Area to University of New Mexico Hospital on Saturday evening, talked with reporters at the hospital Sunday night. Jose Jr. was in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery, they said.
       Before those harrowing moments, Charlotte Salazar said, “It had been a beautiful evening, and we said, 'Why not take a drive up to the mountains?' ''
       Signs posted throughout picnic areas and trailheads in the Sandia Mountains warn visitors that they are in “Cougar Country” and “Bear Country.”
       The conditions were good for tracking in the days after the incident, Morgan said.
       Game and Fish called in a tracker and his dogs that had been used by the department before, he said.
       “As soon as we got the call, he was there,” he said. “He's probably the best (in the state). These dogs are so well-trained that they will not key on anything but a (cougar).”
       Jose's scratches are consistent with a cougar's, said Morgan, and larger than a bobcat's. A small bear could have made scratches that size, he said.
       The boy, shown pictures brought to the hospital by Game and Fish, identified the animal as a “big cat.” So did his father, although Charlotte Salazar said it looked like a large bobcat.
       But based on the tracks and droppings found in the area and what Jose Jr. has said, the department is out trying to snare an immature cougar, Morgan said. Such an animal can weigh from 60 to 80 pounds and could have easily carried the 42-pound boy, Morgan said.
       Three leg-hold snares have been set up in the area and, if an animal is caught, it will be sedated, its teeth measured and compared to the bite marks on Jose Jr.
       Based on that evidence, the animal will either be released or euthanized, Morgan said.
       Regardless, if the cat had had one second more, Jose Salazar Sr. said, it could have gotten a better grip, picked Jose up and been gone.
       That thought “just makes me want to throw up,” he said Sunday.
       Officials say cougar attacks aren't common, but they do happen. A Santa Fe turkey hunter was pounced on by a cougar in 2001, but the cougar left him alone on the ground after that. The only reported human fatality in New Mexico by a cougar happened in Española in 1974, when an 8-year-old boy was killed.
       Officials put Las Cruces on warning last week after a poodle was found dead, apparently killed by a cougar.
      
       Telegraph Staff Writer Lee Ross contributed to this report.
   

---