The Associated Press
ZIGZAG, Ore. — Authorities say they are investigating whether an adult female cougar they killed at the site of a fatal attack on a human is the same animal that killed the 55-year-old hiker.
U.S. Department of Agriculture officers killed a cougar Friday that appeared at the site of the deadly attack near Mount Hood, the state’s highest peak, by a cougar on Diana Bober, an avid and experienced hiker.
Bober’s body was found Monday, almost two weeks after the last time others heard from her.
She was the first person known to have been killed by a cougar in the wild in Oregon and the second in the Pacific Northwest this year.
In May, a mountain biker was killed by a cougar on a trail east of Seattle, the first fatal attack in Washington state in 94 years.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a news release that the cougar’s body will be taken to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory in Ashland.
The laboratory will analyze DNA evidence to determine if the cougar is the same one that killed Bober.
Bober, who lived in the Portland suburb of Gresham, apparently fought the cougar with repellent, a sharp object and a stick, her sister said.
Bober’s sister Alison, who is from Arlington, Va., and was visiting Portland, Ore., said Diana loved the outdoors, and that’s how she should be remembered.
“It allowed her to see the beauty in life,” Alison Bober said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Diana stood at only 5 feet, 4 inches tall, Bober said.
“She was petite, but she was strong,” Bober said.
