A rogue squirrel has residents of California’s San Francisco Bay area on edge. The vicious little beast has recently attacked at least five people, sending two of them to the hospital.
Flyers have been posted warning of a “very mean squirrel” that “comes out of nowhere” in the Lucas Valley neighborhood of San Rafael, California.
That’s not an isolated incident, Wyoming biologists told Cowboy State Daily, adding that even though they seem cute, the rodents can be meaner than people realize.
Attacking Limbs
Joan Heblack of San Rafael, California, learned that the hard way last week when a squirrel attacked her while out on a daily walk around her neighborhood.
The critter ran up her leg and sank its teeth into her thigh, Heblack told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
“He wouldn’t get off, and he just kept hanging on biting me,” she said. “They’re cute — except when they run up and start biting your thighs, and he wasn’t getting off. It was bloody, and I ran back to my house and called the local ER.”
That’s when she got some good news — squirrels for the most part don’t carry rabies.
Although she walks about 5 miles a day and has seen plenty of squirrels, birds and other local wildlife, being rushed by one was a first, she said.
"It came out of nowhere. I didn't see him running up to me at all,” she told ABC7 News KGO in San Francisco.
She suffered scratches and bites to her leg, although she said she’s lucky compared to other people whom the squirrel has attacked.
“There was another woman who was really hurt more, and it really got her arm,” Heblack said. “I think she had, like, 17 stitches."
Isabel Campoy told ABC7 that she and her niece were also attacked.
"This is beautiful, now it's following us — until she almost killed me," said Campoy told the station.
"Squirrel went from the floor and tried to jump up to my face,” she said. "I tried to protect my face, my arm was completely overcome by (the) squirrel. Finally it jumped off, by then I was full of blood, I run to the emergency room."
If the attacks persist, a local animal welfare group has offered to coordinate with state officials to “remove” the squirrel, according to reports.
Squirrels Not All That Friendly
While humans and squirrels have long existed in harmony in urban areas, it is best to keep a sense of separation, said retired wildlife biologist Franz Camenzind of Jackson.
Whenever people feed wildlife or allow animals to get too comfortable around them, there’s the potential for trouble, he said.
“It’s really hard to predict” if and when a particular animal might turn aggressive, he said, but there seem to be common denominators.
“I think the common factors are just habituation to humans, and then habituation to food,” he said.
Just about any mammal can “get assertive, if not aggressive” when food is involved, said Gary Beauvais, director of the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database at the University of Wyoming.
There’s a robust population of fox squirrels living on the UW campus.
Although Beauvais hasn’t heard of anybody getting scratched or bitten, the UW squirrels have been known to “halfway chase people around” if they think the humans might have food.
Fox squirrels aren’t native to Wyoming. They were introduced to towns and cities across the West as it was settled, he said.
Red squirrels are the native species, he added. It’s extremely rare for squirrels to bite and scratch people, but it’s not unheard of.
Reports of a squirrel attacking people in a crowded environment like the Bay area “aren’t surprising,” he said.
Squirrels Like Meat, Eggs
This isn’t the first time Californians have been freaked out by squirrels.
Last year, many were shocked to hear that ground squirrels were hunting, killing and devouring voles.
However, squirrels and other rodents are opportunists, and will eat meat and insects when it suits them, Beauvais said.
Recent research also indicates that red squirrels prey heavily on song bird nests in subalpine forests, he said.
“A lot of song bird nests are raided by red squirrels. They will gladly eat the eggs, or the chicks,” he said.
In the meantime, Heblack said she now crosses to the other side of the street on her walks if she sees a squirrel. She just doesn’t want to take a chance that it’s the same squirrel or another aggressive rodent.
She also has advice for people in the Cowboy State: “Watch out for those squirrels in Wyoming."
