bitten

WASHINGTON — Fox news made its way to Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove) identified himself as the victim of a fox attack. Bera, a doctor, told reporters he was walking near a Senate office building Monday when he felt something around his ankle.

“Yeah, I was just walking, as I often would, over by that park over by Russell [Senate Office Building] and felt something lunge — totally unprovoked, right — at the back of my leg,” Bera said, adding that he was thankful he had an umbrella with him to help fend off the wild animal. “It felt like a small dog.”

The disclosure of a fox attack on a member of Congress followed a memo that went out Tuesday warning of possible fox dens on Capitol grounds.

The Office of the Sergeant at Arms sent an alert notifying members of Congress and staff that U.S. Capitol Police had received reports Monday of people being attacked or bitten by a fox.

The notice, which was also forwarded to journalists who cover Congress, described the locations of two encounters and said Capitol Police had received a call Tuesday morning about a fox approaching staff near an intersection.

“There are possibly several fox dens on Capitol grounds,” the notification said. “Animal Control is currently on the grounds seeking to trap and relocate any foxes they find. Foxes are wild animals that are very protective of their dens and territory. Please do not approach any fox you see.”

Bera said the bite didn’t appear to puncture through his sock and into his skin. He said he will take a seven-shot anti-rabies regimen as a precaution and advised everyone on Capitol grounds to take encounters with wild animals seriously.

He tweeted that he is “healthy and back at work serving the people of #CA07.”

A Politico reporter said she was also bitten by a fox as she was leaving the Capitol on Tuesday, because “that’s of course something I expect in THE MIDDLE OF DC.”

Shortly after, Capitol Police broke some news of its own: It captured a fox.

A parody Twitter account was created as the identity of the Capitol fox. It released a statement on its “illegal arrest.”

“As a fox, I cannot speak. And too often — I have nobody to speak for me,” the statement began.

“Today, I was forcibly removed from my den by very scary and mean individuals,” it continued. “I am innocent of the crimes in question. This will not be the end.”

June 29 (UPI) — A 20-year-old woman was likely bitten by a juvenile sand tiger shark while swimming off a New York beach, officials said.

The unidentified woman was waist-deep in the surf at the Central Mall beachfront of Jones Beach State Park when at about 4:15 p.m. EDT Wednesday she reported being bitten by an unknown marine wildlife, the state’s Park, Recreation and Historic Preservation office said in a statement on Friday.

Officials said the woman suffered non-life-threatening laceration injuries to her left foot and leg and was transported to Nassau County University Medical Center Hospital for treatment.

As she did not observe what exactly attacked her, an investigation ensued with biologists concluding that it was “most likely” a juvenile sand tiger shark, though “without direct observation of the animal that caused the bites a full expert consensus was not reached,” park officials said.

Swimming resumed at the beach on Thursday, after park staff and police used drones to search the area and lifeguards scanned the water from the shore.

There have been a total of 24 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks in New York state since 1837, according to the Florida Museum’s International Shark Attack File.