I’m not a big fan of nature. It’s filled with animals operating under the assumption that “territorial means never having to say you’re sorry.” Nature is also home to billions of bugs ready, willing and able to risk their lives to have a piece of you. Just as I don’t feel comfortable exploring new Boston bars without ballistic ballast, I wouldn’t dream of communing with nature without a gun. Paranoid much, you ask? Yeah well, clock this from washingtonexaminer.com. “The [15] kids were fishing when a beaver was spotted approaching a dock where about four or five children were located, a nature center staff member who witnessed the incident told Fairfax County Park Authority spokeswoman Judy Pedersen . . .
The beaver jumped on the dock, staggered and jumped toward a 4-year-old girl, Pedersen was told. The staff member grabbed the girl, some of the children’s fathers took the kids away from the area, and nature center staff immediately called police. “Certainly the children were startled by it,” Pedersen said. An Animal Control officer shot and killed the beaver, police officials said. No one was bitten, and there were no injuries.
So nothing to worry yourself about, then. Right? Carry On Camping?
“I really think it’s a coincidence” that there were two rabid beavers found in one week, said Fairfax County Health Department spokesman Glen Barbour. On Sunday, a rabid raccoon was seen acting strange and walking toward people near homes near Lake Barcroft, police officials said. It is unknown whether the raccoon bit the beaver that attacked Peterson. Animal Control officers plan to canvass the area with educational fliers about rabies. Barbour could not say whether there was an increase in rabid wildlife at Lake Barcroft, but he said rabies occurs naturally in the county and that rabies activity countywide appears to be consistent with levels in previous years.
Consistently carrying a gun (snubbie?) out in nature appears to be something people should do this year. And the next. And the next. [h/t Glenn Reynolds]