Joan Heblack was walking in the Lucas Valley district in San Rafael, a city with 57,000 inhabitants in the San Francisco Bay Area, when the squirrel suddenly appeared and attacked her leg, scratched and bite. “He clung to my leg. I thought,” Remove him from me, please take him away from me. “
A similar story at Isabel Campoy. She too was attacked in the same neighborhood. According to her, the squirrel jumped “off the ground to her face,” and finally ended up on her arm. “He left me bloody,” Campoy tells the American news agency AP. Both women had to go to the local emergency department for a treatment after the attack.
Flyers have since been hung that warn residents of the “very mean” squirrel. “This is not a joke. More than five people have already been attacked,” it says.
‘Collaborate to remove animal’
Since mid-September the attacks have stopped somewhat, says Lisa Bloch of non-profit organization Marin Humane. “If he were to pop up again and show again aggressive behavior, we will work with the authorities to remove the animal,” she says. “We have seen this kind of behavior before. It is almost always because someone has fed the animal.”