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# Emaciated 58-pound cougar mauls Santa Monica hiker in Sequoia National Forest
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-resident-shannon-parker-lost-an-eye-and-suffered-deep-gashes-to-her-leg-in-weekend-attack-in-sequoia-forest/
- Published: 2004-06-29T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:39:12.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Community, Montana, #archive-import

*Attacking cougar was extremely emaciated*

WILSHIRE-MONTANA — The cougar that mauled a hiker from Santa Monica on Saturday weighed just 58 pounds, or about half what the average 2-year-old male mountain lion weighs, according to preliminary lab results returned Monday.

Shannon Parker, 27, lost her right eye and suffered deep gashes to her right thigh in the evening attack, which occurred as Parker was hiking on a clifftop trail in the Sequoia National Forest. Parker left her boyfriend and two friends at a mine shaft and was walking along the edge of the Kern River when the emaciated lion attacked, officials said.

“The boyfriend heard her screaming, and he came around a little tiny bend and he saw a mountain lion right on top of her — and it looked like the mountain lion was covering her face,” said Lt. Brian Naslund from the U.S. Department of Fish and Game.

Naslund said Parker’s boyfriend, Mathias Maciejewski, 28, jumped on the lion and twice stabbed it with a knife in the right shoulder, while Jason Quirino, 30, a friend, hit the lion four times with a softball-sized rock, finally forcing it to release Parker and flee. Meanwhile, Ben Aaron Marsh, 15, another friend, ran to get help from a Forest Service fire patrolman near the head of the Johnsondale Bridge trail. The mountain lion left a bloody trail, and was caught later and killed.

Parker, who underwent hours of surgery at the UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, lives in an apartment north of Wilshire Boulevard and works as a regional saleswoman for a surgical supply company. Friends, neighbors and colleagues on Monday described her as a short, pretty and athletic woman who is close to her family and spends a lot of time with her boyfriend Maciejewski, a law school student living in Los Angeles.

“She’s a very sweet girl, athletic — hard worker,” said neighbor Marisol Metcalfe, 32, a landscape designer, adding Parker is an avid runner and frequently worked out. “She’s a great girl. I can’t believe this happened to her... Everything was going really well for her.”

Marc Haverstock, Parker’s work supervisor, said Parker is “loved by all that

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 29, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062904.pdf?ref=smdp.com)