It was otter carnage.
A Florida man was feeding ducks and geese in his local pond when a rabid otter savagely mauled him, leaving the man with dozens of bites all over his body.
The Florida Department of Health confirmed that the animal tested positive for rabies and has since been euthanized. This is the first rabies-infected otter the Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control has seen since 2010.
Joseph Scaglione, 74, stepped out of the gate surrounding his backyard in Jupiter to feed birds that gather in the small pond adjacent to his property last Wednesday, as he does most mornings, he told the station WPBF
Suddenly, all the ducks and geese took flight, initially leading Scaglione to suspect that a bird of prey might be circling overhead.
“[I] Looked up, no hawk, look back down, and there was a brown head sticking up over the bank of the pond,” the man recalled. “And at first, I didn’t know it was an otter, but then I realized that’s an otter.”
Scaglione said he started backing towards his gate, but when he raised his hand to close it, the crazed critter lunged at him, making the septuagenarian stumble and fall.
The aquatic mammal then proceeded to maul the victim, sinking its sharp teeth into his legs, hands and arms a total of 41 times.
“My pinky is the worst. I have two puncture wounds,” Scaglione said, showing his wounds. “One is on the corner of where the cuticle was.”
Eventually, the bleeding man was able to toss the otter aside and seek help.
Meanwhile, the otter continued terrorizing the Jupiter neighborhood, attacking a pet dog as it was being walked by its owners with a young child.
Finally, some locals put an end to the aquatic mammal’s ferocious rampage by trapping it inside a trash bin.
Animal control officers were then called to cart the otter away and collect a blood sample from it. On Saturday, a test confirmed that the animal had rabies, said Capt. David Walesky, the assistant director of Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control.
Walesky said that the ill-fated otter likely caught the deadly virus from an infected raccoon.
The disease, which causes fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, is spread to people from the saliva of infected animals, usually through a bite.
Symptoms include fever, headache, excess salivation, muscle spasms, paralysis, and mental confusion.
