A Vermont man with a unique last name is currently recovering after he was attacked by an aggressive beaver on the 4th of July.
Brandon Shortsleeve (yes, Shortsleeve) was swimming in Lake George in New York on the holiday weekend with his brother and friend when they had quite the wild animal encounter. Much to their surprise, a beaver made a beeline right towards where they were swimming in the water.
They didn’t think much of it at first, but then the buck-toothed creature started biting Shortsleeve’s friend, and Brandon explained to NBC5 that he and the rest of the group quickly realized that this beaver was out to hurt them:
“The first time my friend ended up picking it up, it swam back at him, so we were like, ‘Okay, it’s just out for blood.’ We were in the water, I think, for maybe five minutes before my friend started freaking out and screaming. He said something attacked him. I just jumped in the water, and then I grabbed whatever it was attacking and pulled it out.”
The beaver kept coming back, so Shortsleeve and the others swimming decided to fight back.
Beavers are not known to be aggressive animals. But if they do attack, they have some big teeth that can cause very serious injuries. They only confront humans if they feel threatened, someone has gotten too close to their dam, or if they have an illness that affects their demeanor… like rabies. The one that went after Shortsleeve and his friends is believed to have been suffering from the viral disease.
As you might imagine, it was startling for Shortsleeve and the two others to see a normally docile animal become so aggressive:
“I was a little freaked out. I didn’t think it was a beaver at first. I just grabbed this little brown blob in the water. I saw its teeth and its tail, and I was like, ‘Okay, this is a beaver.’ It ended up biting me a few times as I got it out of the water. I’ve got to keep a good grip on this thing, then I just tossed him pretty far.”
According to reports, the beaver that attacked Shortsleeve and his friend is still out in the wild. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is doing their best to track down and capture the dam-building culprit and remove it from the lake. Until they do, they are advising visitors of Lake George to exercise caution.
That being said, the odds of a beaver attack are low, as Shortsleeve found out:
“I was told that I would have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than that ever happening again.”
That’s probably true.
And because I have no other choice but to make this joke… if Shortsleeve would have worn some long sleeves that day while he was swimming, the bites may not have been as bad. Just had to put that out there.
Here’s the local new story on the rabid beaver and Brandon Shortsleeve:
