The fox attack in England sensationalist reporting is getting to be a bit much. Other than the toddlers, these are very small encounters.

A toddler was recovering at home today after being attacked by fox at a playgroup in Brighton.

The three-year-old boy was either bitten or scratched on the arm as he played outside at a party at Dorothy Stringer pre-school playgroup in Brighton, East Sussex, on Saturday afternoon.

It is believed the child, who has not been named, stroked the tail of an animal that was sticking out from under a temporary building, when it turned on him. The playgroup was closed today. In a statement it said: “We can confirm that a child suffered injuries after being attacked by a fox at an event on our premises at the weekend.”

It said foxes had existed in the area for sometime, but the playgroup had not taken action because wildlife experts had advised that they were not a danger to people.

An RSPCA inspector who attended the scene was unable to find the animal.

Relatives took the boy to the Royal Sussex county hospital in Brighton where he was treated and released, according to Sussex police. He is now recovering at home, the playgroup said.

Its statement added: “We have been in touch with Defra [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] and also with a local pest control company, which is due to visit this afternoon to give advice on the action we should take.”

An RSPCA spokeswoman said: “As far as we are aware it was a fox. People there told us they were aware of a fox who had made his den there and had been living there for a year or so.”

She added: “Attacks like this are extremely rare. Foxes will usually shy away from interaction with people. We offer our sincere condolences to the family concerned and we hope for a speedy recovery for the child.”

The spokeswoman explained that had a fox been found, it would not have been put down but taken away and re-released elsewhere. She had no information on the extent of the injuries.

A police spokeswoman said: “Police were called by South East Coast Ambulance Service at 12.30pm on Saturday 19 June after a report of a boy being bitten by a fox.”

She added: “The boy was taken to the Royal Sussex county hospital by family, where he was treated and released.”

A spokeswoman for South East Coast Ambulance Service said: “We were called to the scene but were then stood down. This would imply that the injuries were not that bad.”

Trevor Weeks, founder of the charity East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service, called for a proportionate response to the attack.

He said: “It has been known for years by the educational authorities that foxes live under makeshift buildings at schools, so it should come as no surprise there was a fox present.

“The fox did not attack the child – it was defending itself. There is a significant difference. Any wild animal is going to turn round and bite if you grab its tail.”

The incident comes a fortnight after nine-month-old twins Isabella and Lola Koupparis were attacked after a fox entered their upstairs bedroom in Hackney, east London.

It is thought to have got in through a door on the ground floor of the three-storey house, which was left open because of the hot weather, while the children’s parents watched Britain’s Got Talent on television.

Both girls have since been discharged from hospital. The twins’ four-year-old brother, Max, who was also sleeping upstairs, was not hurt in the attack.

via Toddler released from hospital after Brighton fox attack | World news | guardian.co.uk.

JACKSONVILLE BEACH – A woman bitten on the leg in the ocean near 16th Avenue South has prompted the annual summer vigilance for potential shark activity.

The 18-year-old woman was bitten about 2 p.m. Thursday in waist-deep water a few feet from shore, said Jacksonville Beach Ocean Rescue Capt. Thomas Wright. She was treated at Baptist Medical Center-Beaches for the minor bite wound, which was described as an outline of a small mouth with teeth.

Wright said the woman was bitten by something, but officials aren't sure it was a shark. Barracudas, bluefish and stingrays can bite or sting, he said.

“Unless it's a missing limb or something, I wouldn't necessarily call it a shark attack,” said Wright. “It's likely there is a lot of life in the water right now. The water's warming up.”

He said sharks, such as black tips and spinners, are migrating to their nursing grounds as far north as North Carolina.

Lifeguards along Jacksonville's Beaches haven't spotted large numbers of sharks recently, he said.

The incident had little impact on beachgoers. Many people were still in the water near the site after it happened Thursday. Even more people were at the beach Friday, since that was the last day of classes for many schools.

Jacksonville Beach Mayor Fland Sharp said he doesn't want to downplay any attack. But beachgoers have acclimated to the ocean's realities.

“We've had a shark attack what seems like every two or three years,” Sharp said. “There were a couple things that looked like they were shark bites and a couple things looked like it was something else.”

Sharp, a former lifeguard, said people should keep shark threats in perspective.

“If I was coming down here and felt a little uncomfortable, just walk up to a lifeguard on a chair” and ask if there are any reported shark sightings, he said. “I think the odds are much greater of being struck by lightning.”

Sharp said there are some simple rules to follow.

“In the summertime, there are pods of bait fish that come close to shore,” he said. “You definitely don't want to go swimming around those because there are sharks and other kinds of fish that are feeding around those. There are sharks here and you just have to use some common sense about it.”

Wright said it has been about four years since a shark attack in the area and that was at the Jacksonville Beach Pier off Fourth Avenue North. The woman's injuries were minor then, too. He advised swimmers to remember the ocean is the shark's habitat.

“Just know that is their home and they are out there all the time,” said Wright. “Just because you don't see fins swimming by like the movie “Jaws” doesn't mean they're not there. If you're concerned about being bit or anything, you probably shouldn't go out there.”

via Attack on woman in Jacksonville Beach waters may have been shark, raises concern | jacksonville.com.

NELSON – A recent bear attack on a four-year-old girl and her grandmother in their yard has prompted a call for diligence.

Conservation officer Len Butler killed the mature male black bear after it clawed Nine Mile resident Jane Tillotson and visiting granddaughter Megan Chapple.

The young girl required six to eight stitches on her leg following the Aug. 24 attack.

“I was babysitting my granddaughters, who are four and six, and we went out to work in my vegetable garden,” Tillotson said.

“We'd been there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes making lots of noise. My littlest granddaughter just yelled for me and I turned and looked at her and a big bear was right behind her.

“The bear swiped at her and cut the back of her calf so she fell. It looked like that bear was going to bite her.”

Tillotson said she scooped up Megan and slowly backed away from the bear with her other granddaughter right behind her.

The bear swiped at the child again, scratching Megan's belly and — though she didn't feel it at the time — Tillotson's thigh.

“I was just shrieking hysterically at the top of my lungs,” said Tillotson. “It was probably no more than a few seconds but it seemed like forever to me [before] it stopped and ambled out of the garden.”

Butler said he doesn't think the attack was predatory in nature.

“Basically the bear was there to get something to eat and these people were in the way,” he said. ” If the bear wanted to kill the little girl, [it] could have.”

When he arrived at the home, Butler said he found a “fairly large” black bear in the neighbour's compost. He had his dog chase the bear into a tree where it was shot.

Garth Mowat, the B.C. Environment Ministry's senior wildlife biologist for the Kootenay region, said it's rare for a black bear to attack and knew of only one other human-related attack by a bear in the past 18 months. “I've not heard of black bears attacking people over food very often,” he said. “There might have been something else going on.”

Mowat suggested the bear may have been afraid or it took the child for a dog that was bothering it.

A few days after the attack, Nelson police shot a black bear hunkered down in a residential area along a road frequented by school children.

Part of the problem, say wildlife experts, is people leaving garbage and compost accessible to bears.

Butler said conservation officers will be issuing more wildlife protection orders to clear garbage, compost and fallen fruit. People who don't comply could be fined $345.

via Public warned after bear attacks girl, woman.

TAMPA — A 7-foot alligator was caught in the parking lot of a Gulf coast middle school.

Authorities say the alligator turned up in front of Stewart Middle School's cafeteria early Monday.

Hillsborough County school district spokeswoman Linda Cobbe said the alligator was found before students arrived and they were kept away. No one was hurt.

A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer caught the alligator in a back parking lot. It has been turned over to trapper to be euthanized.

via 7-foot gator caught outside Florida middle school.

TAMPA – Growing up in Tampa, Mike Hendershot thought he knew snakes. He's even been bitten by non-poisonous ones a couple of times.

So Sunday night when he and his friends saw a foot and a half long snake under their car, Mike thought it was harmless.

“I've messed with snakes before. I saw this one, it looked like a garden snake to me. I just tried to, I was messing around. I tried to grab it,” he said.

But the snake turned its head, striking him. Its fangs pierced Mike's middle finger on his right hand.'

“It was as if someone hit me with a hammer on the finger. And then a needle. It was just a stinging, numbing pain,” he recalled, from his hospital room at University Community Hospital, in Tampa.

The 22-year-old recent FSU grad said he and his friends went on the internet and saw a picture of the snake. It turned out it was a water moccasin, a highly venomous snake.

Mike's friends rushed him to UCH, where he received 12 vials of anti-venin.

Hospital staff have had a lot of experience in venomous snake bites.

Last year, UCH treated the most poisonous snake bites than any other hospital in the country, with 15.

Jim Maister, a clinical pharmacist with UCH, said this is the season for snakes.

“Yes, it is the season. Summertime. They are cold-blooded animals, so they do need to warm themselves in the sun. It's one of those things, we have to be careful and we have to respect their environment too,” Maister said.

He's particularly worried right now too.

“Because this week, next week, all the kids get out of school. And there are lots of areas that are under construction. Areas that are plowed out or mowed over. These animals need some place to go, so they are going to end up in your garage, under your car,” Maister said.

Maister also says we all need to respect these animal's environment, and Mike Hendershot agrees. He admits it wasn't as easy as he thought to detect the differences between the poisonous snakes and the harmless ones.

“Don't grab them, that's for sure. Just don't even get around them,” Hendershot warned.

via Poisonous snakebite sends man to ER.

LONDON (June — The red fox has long divided public opinion in Britain. Many country dwellers view the animals as livestock-murdering vermin and enjoy hunting them down with packs of dogs. But a large section of the population has a deep respect for these canny critters — who have learned to thrive in Britain's towns and cities — as reflected by Roald Dahl's charming children's book, “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

However, following an attack by one of the animals on 9-month-old twins in east London this weekend, foxes have lost many of their fans. According to Pauline Koupparis, the children's mother, a fox crept through an open door and into their house on Sunday evening. Koupparis, who had been watching TV with her husband, rushed upstairs when she heard the girls crying in the nursery.

“I went into the room and I saw some blood in Isabella's cot. I thought she'd had a nosebleed,” she told BBC radio. “I put on the light, I saw the fox and it wasn't even scared of me, it just looked me directly in the eye.” The siblings were rushed to hospital, where Isabella received treatment for injuries to her arm, and her sister Lola for facial wounds. A fox caught near the family home today was destroyed, although it's not known if it was the same animal that attacked the sisters.

Although the incident was highly unusual — fox attacks on humans are almost unknown in the U.K. — some media commentators have declared that authorities must now launch an all-out war on this red menace. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Clive Aslet — editor-at-large of the pro-hunting magazine Country Life — claimed that the number of urban foxes has rocketed in recent years, making a cull urgently needed. Experts at the University of Bristol's Mammal Group disagree, saying that urban fox numbers are relatively stable at about 33,000. They argue that the foxes have simply become more visible and confident over the past decade, as the amount of tasty waste scraps left lying around city streets has increased.

Aslet went on to argue that animal control specialists wielding dart guns should be ordered to patrol “railway embankments” where foxes are known to lurk. He added that “Fantastic Mr. Fox” should also be banned in schools, as it gives children the wrong idea about these troublesome beasts.

The tabloid Daily Mail also berated “urban dwellers” who “adopt a soft-hearted attitude to these predators, who are foolishly seen as cute, cuddly and clever.” It cited pest controllers who claimed that foxes had been known to gobble up “cats, gerbils [and] chinchillas.”

Other animal experts, though, have called on the British public to get the recent, admittedly tragic, attack into perspective. In England alone, some 225,000 people a year receive medical treatment for dog bites. “But people aren't calling for all dogs in cities to be culled,” John Bryant told AOL News. Bryant runs the British Humane Wildlife Deterrence Association, which removes foxes and other critters from homes and businesses without killing them.

“I've never heard of an attack like this before in my 40 years of working with foxes,” says Bryant, who speculates that the attack on the girls was carried out by a confused 3- to 4-month-old cub. He thinks it might have been lured to the nursery by the smell of diapers, which urban foxes have learned to associate with food, as they're often found alongside edibles in household trash. “It was simply an unfortunate freak occurrence.”

Bryant now worries that pest control companies are using the incident to whip up fears over urban fox numbers and win new business. He also suspects that foxhunting supporters like Aslet are trying to capitalize on the attack, which is useful fuel for their campaign to reverse Parliament's 2004 ban on hunting with hounds.

The fox expert says that if Brits really want their animal neighbors to leave town, they need to do one thing: clean up their dirty habits. “We throw food out in the streets and leave it lying around in unprotected black sacks,” Bryant says. “Our waste disposal standards are so appalling, it's no wonder that we're surrounded by scavengers like foxes.”

via Fox Attack on British Babies Sparks Debate Over Fox Hunting, Pest Control – AOL News.

It seems that as the mating season of the Alligators is nearing, the reptiles are busy finding a mate.

On Monday a 7-feet long alligator was found in a middle School in the coastal city of Tampa. The alligator was found roaming in the premise of the school building and reports claim that the authorities informed the Tampa police department at around 7 p.m.

The students of the school who had started arriving by then were kept away from the alligators. Before the police arrived to take hold of the situation and trap the alligator, the staff members of the school were able to coax the alligator and trap him inside the boy’s bathroom. The Police arrived with trappers from the Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Service to capture the alligator.

Marc Pellicano, a sixth-grade science teacher of the school has revealed to media sources that he noticed the giant alligator just after getting out of his car in the parking area of the school on Monday morning.

He said that he immediately got to action to see to it that the alligator did not attack anybody or nobody got close enough to the alligator. The alligator then according to another teacher entered the school building and stopped in front of the cafeteria.

From there on it was coaxed by the staff members into the toilet and locked from outside until the trappers and the police arrived.

David Rocco, one of the school teachers said that the alligator was not aggressive and that the only time it got a bit aggressive was when the noose was put around it.

Gary Morse of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Service speculated that the alligator might have entered the school on Friday before the gates were shut.

via 7-Feet Long Gator Found In A Tampa Middle School.

A tornado unleashed a “war zone” of destruction in northwest Ohio, destroying dozens of homes and an emergency services building as a line of storms killed at least seven people and briefly threatened the Northeast on Sunday.

Storms collapsed a movie-theater roof in Illinois and ripped siding off a building at a Michigan nuclear plant, forcing a shutdown. But most of the worst was reserved for a 100-yard-wide, 7-mile-long strip southeast of Toledo now littered with wrecked vehicles, splintered wood and family possessions.

Tornadoes Sweep Through Midwest

The tornado ripped the roof and back wall off Lake High School's gymnasium at about 11 p.m. Saturday, several hours before the graduation ceremony was supposed to begin. The school board president said one of the victims was the father of the class valedictorian.

Two buses were tossed on their sides and another was thrown about 50 yards, landing on its top near the high school's football field. More than 10 hours later, its right turn signal was still blinking.

Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer flew over the damaged area and said at least 50 homes were destroyed and another 50 severely damaged, as well as six commercial buildings. The storm fell over an area of farm fields and light industry, narrowly missing the heavily populated suburbs on the southern edge of Toledo.

“It’s a war zone,” Hummer said. “It’s pretty disheartening.”

Hummer said Sunday afternoon all buildings had been searched and everyone was accounted for. Rescuers were searching a wooded area and a field near the worst-hit portion of town as a precaution.

The tornado turned a township police and emergency medical services building into a mishmash of 2-by-4 framing and pink insulation. Hummer was talking to a police dispatcher by phone when the storm hit.

“She started saying, ‘The building is shaking,’ and then another dispatcher came on and said, ‘The roof just blew off,” he said.

The storm ripped off most of the building’s back half and wrapped part of the metal roof around a tree. At least six police vehicles – half the township’s fleet – were destroyed, and one car was tossed into the spot where the building once stood.

The storm knocked out emergency services for a short time, and all the emergency dispatchers and 911 operators had to be moved to a nearby town.

“When the people who are supposed to help you are victims of the storm, it does take you a minute to catch your breath,” Hummer said.

Those killed included a person outside the police department and a motorist, Hummer said. He said a young child and two other victims were from nearby Millbury, a bedroom community of roughly 1,200 about 10 miles southeast of Toledo. Hummer said two other people died at hospitals but he did not have details.

One of the victims was the father of Lake High School’s valedictorian, said Tim Krugh, president of the school district’s board. Krugh said the school has rescheduled graduation for Tuesday evening at a Toledo community college.

Neighbors said the house of the valedictorian’s family was destroyed, and all that was left was a basement filled with water.

More than 30 people in the Toledo area were hospitalized. Two adults and two children were in critical condition, said Mercy hospital system spokeswoman Gloria Enk.

In southeastern Michigan, severe storms and high winds ripped siding off a building at the Fermi 2 nuclear plant, causing it to shut down automatically, said Dan Smith, the public information officer for Monroe County. Investigators were inspecting the nuclear plant on the shore of Lake Erie on Sunday morning, and the plant was expected to go back into operation, Smith said.

About 35,000 people were without power but it wasn’t clear whether that was directly related to the nuclear plant’s shutdown or because of damage to power lines in the area, Smith said.

In Dundee, Mich., 11 people were injured after high winds blew off part of a roof at a waterpark, reports CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano.

Tornadoes also were reported in Illinois. More than a dozen people were injured in Dwight, where about 40 mobile homes and 10 other homes were destroyed, Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Patti Thompson said.

The roof of a movie theater collapsed in Elmwood, Ill., about 30 miles west of Peoria. State Trooper Dustin Pierce said 150 to 200 people had been inside, but they had been evacuated to the basement and no one was hurt.

The storms left a trail of damaged homes in northern Indiana and two tornadoes were reported, but no one was injured. In eastern Iowa, buildings were damaged and one person was hurt when a tornado touched down in Maquoketa.

A cold front colliding with warm unstable air produced the storms that struck Saturday night, meteorologist Marty Mullen of the National Weather Service said, and that front was draped from New England south through the mid-Atlantic region later Sunday. The storm weakened as it headed east and a tornado watch for much of New England was canceled.

The day after the Toledo-area tornado hit, residents were searching fields looking for anything salvageable.

The storm destroyed Ronald Johns’ house and barn and flung his cast-iron bath tub into a wheat field, but his wife managed to find a wristwatch, still working, amid the scattered bits of their rural home near Millbury.

On Saturday night, Johns looked out the window and couldn’t even see the barn directly across the road. The chimney fell through the first floor as soon as the retired couple made it to the basement, pinning Johns with bricks until his wife, Jan, managed to free him.

Ronald Johns, 74, said they were lucky. “We didn’t get down there five seconds too fast,” he said.

Truck driver Carl Gooden, 54, said he, his wife and his adult son were sitting on the porch when they heard a roar and ran for the bathroom.

Wind tore off most of the home’s roof and ripped open the north side of house, exposing a bedroom and a closet where sweat shirts and dresses were still on their hangers. In the front yard, a sliver of aluminum siding from a neighbor’s barn was wrapped around a teetering telephone pole.

Gooden said his family lost two garages and five vehicles. The front yard was littered with decades of memories: a Loretta Lynn album, a porcelain lamp and a green golf bag were among the recognizable items.

“My heart sinks,” Gooden said. “I worked a lifetime for all this.”

But he wasn’t about to go in to retrieve items such as his wife’s jewelry or his NASCAR collectibles. His home was knocked 5 feet off its foundation and basement washer and dryer were all that was holding it up.

“It’s not worth dying for,” he said.

via 7 Killed as Storms Sweep Through Midwest – CBS News.

Link

Alicia Lee, a high school senior with a knack for photography, celebrated the final night of winter at a Marin County beach with friends.

The excursion would be her last. The 17-year-old from Mill Valley was found Sunday morning, floating in the chilly waters just north of Muir Beach nearly 24 hours after friends reported her missing, officials said.

The cause of death is under investigation, but authorities do not suspect foul play, National Park Service ranger George Durgerian said.

Lee apparently fell into the ocean early Saturday near Tennessee Beach in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, where she and eight friends were camping for the night. The beach is a short hike from Mill Valley through Tennessee Valley, just north of the Marin Headlands.

Lee was last seen around 1 a.m. Friends noticed she was missing by 9 a.m. Saturday morning, and, after searching for her themselves, they notified a ranger about 12:30 p.m. By 2 p.m., a formal search operation was under way.

Search and rescue teams from Marin, Sonoma, San Francisco, Solano and Alameda counties, as well as the National Park Service, combed the rugged coastline around Tennessee Beach for signs of the 5-foot-8, 120-pound girl. In all, the search included 46 rescue personnel, six dogs, six horses, helicopters, boats, all-terrain vehicles and trucks, Durgerian said.

A Park Service ranger and lifeguard, scanning the coast in a Jet Ski-type watercraft, spotted Lee’s body at 10:40 a.m. Sunday, in a cove 2 miles north of where she was last seen. The pair had studied Saturday’s currents and tides and deduced that the girl would have drifted north, Durgerian said.

“It’s extraordinary they found her,” he said. “The phrase ‘needle in a haystack’ would be an understatement.”

The cliffs are so rugged in the area that authorities used a helicopter to recover Lee’s body.

At the same time, the Park Service brought a grief counselor to Tennessee Beach.

The waters off the Marin coast are notoriously treacherous. Rip tides, currents, large waves, cold water, rocks and crumbling cliffs make the shore extremely hazardous, and the Park Service allows swimming only at Stinson Beach.

Dan Coelho of Concord was fishing for Dungeness crabs at Muir Beach Sunday when officials located Lee’s body.

“Every year there are fatalities out here,” Coelho said. “On a scale of 10 on the danger scale, it’s a 10. The ocean here is very powerful.”

Lee was a senior at Tamiscal High School, an alternative school in the Tamalpais Union High School District.

On a photography Web site, she posted dozens of vivid, light-filled photos of New York City, from neoclassical building details to 9/11 tributes. Lee was the subject of a published photograph herself recently, when a Chronicle photographer captured her examining a puddle at Crissy Field after a rainstorm in January.

The photo, which she adopted as her Facebook profile picture, shows her traipsing ankle-deep through the water, studying the ripples, camera around her neck.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/21/BAB41CJAEO.DTL#ixzz0kCOWmips