As mountain lion sightings continue to rise, the California county is turning to Facebook to share information

Authorities — concerned about an increasing number of mountain lion encounters, including an encounter earlier this year that left a man dead and his brother seriously injured — are asking residents of a California county to turn to Facebook to spread the word.

This weekend, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office used its social media channels to encourage residents to get online as part of its mountain lion safety protocol. They praised a group called El Dorado County Mountain Lion Sightings, which had 7,000 members as of Monday, for reporting on mountain lion activity across the county.

The announcement encourages anyone who sees a mountain lion to post details on the Facebook feed, which is listed after calling 911 if a mountain lion poses an immediate threat and calling the local department of agriculture if pets or livestock are injured or killed by a mountain lion, an animal common in the Sierra foothills and increasingly seen in populated areas.

The posts on the page include surveillance footage, photos of feces and other safety announcements.

The page was created in early May, weeks after two brothers were attacked by a mountain lion, resulting in the death of 21-year-old Taylen Brooks. His brother, Wyatt, had to undergo multiple surgeries but survived the attack. It happened on March 23 off Darling Ridge Road east of Auburn, on the edge of the Eldorado National Forest.

The attack shocked the foothills community and was the first fatal encounter with mountain lions in California in two decades.

Experts said after the attack that the brothers did all the right things when they were pinned down by the cougar, including making themselves look bigger, yelling at him and throwing a backpack to scare him away. But instead of leaving, the 90-pound mountain lion became aggressive and attacked the brothers. County trappers, who found the cat next to Brooks’ body and chased it away, eventually relocated the mountain lion and killed it.

Attacks are rare, according to Josh Rosenau, director of policy and advocacy for the Mountain Lion Foundation.

“So much about this situation is unusual and surprising,” Rosenau said of the attack at the time. “For the most part, mountain lions try to avoid people. They don’t like human voices. They recognize human shapes. They tend to avoid people and things that are not obviously food.”

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported only 21 mountain lion attacks on people in the state since 1986, including none since the attack on the Brooks brothers in March. It was the fourth attack involving a death since records have been kept, and the second in El Dorado County. The state’s previous fatal encounter occurred in Orange County in January 2004.

El Dorado deputies said the agency is receiving calls to 911 for a “significant number of mountain lion sightings per day” in the county. In developing the new protocol, the Sheriff’s Office worked with the Outdoor View, a website dedicated to “educating and amplifying your voice for the outdoors,” and with county agricultural officials.

“It was determined that simple ‘sightings’ should be posted to the El Dorado County Mountain Lion Sightings Facebook page at this time,” the sheriff’s office said.

The page provides a phone number to report livestock kills and other non-emergency assistance, but deputies said that in a situation to “protect yourself, your family, pets and livestock if you are in immediate danger or being attacked,” 911 is the remains the first option. for assistance.