Enormous, Hairy Beaver Attacks Outdoorsman & Terrifying Battle Ensues

You’re going about your day just toolin’ around & everything seems normal when suddenly a wild beaver appears out of the blue…

Ah wrong GIF, my bad. THIS wild, wide-set beaver attacks an outdoorsman:

Er, nope. Wrong again. Don’t know why that’s even on my phone or how it got here. Heyyyo. THIS is the monster beaver & the story is a true nightmare:

It attacked Pennsylvanian Dan Wherley as he kayaked Conewago Creek with his daughter. Wherley’s Facebook post about it is kind of long, but it’s genuinely TERRIFYING:

So I’ve been getting a bunch of messages about what happened Sunday, so here it is. Me, Layla and our dog went kayaking on the creek by our house. We were floating, playing in the water and having fun.

I felt something grab my kayak and thought it was my dog, it wasn’t.

It was a big ass crazy beaver.

It kept trying to bite and get into the kayak after me. I kept beating it with the paddle, this went one for a few minutes. It wouldn’t give up. Finally it swam to the opposite side of creek and turned and saw Layla on her kayak who is now 30 yards in front of me. It takes off straight after her. I yell at her to get to the shore, I jump out of my kayak to help. The beaver made to her kayak and started to climb on the back, she was screaming bloody murder.

I punched the beaver and knocked it into the water, Layla made to to the bank. The beaver is after me in waist deep water, lunging at me, I was punching, kicking and trying to get away from it. I ran to the bank with Layla and it followed me still trying to attack us.

I got a big rock and smacked it on the head drawing blood, it still didn’t stop. After about 5 more big rocks to the head it swam away a little bit, then came right back. I grabbed a big stick and smacked it on the head 5 times as hard as I could and the last hit crushed it’s skull. I’ve never seen an animal that voilent and persistent.

I contacted the PA Game Commission and they had me go to the hospital and get rabies shot since I had the beavers blood and all on me. 8 shots down and 3 more to go this week. They are tested the beaver now for rabies. The game warden said he never heard of beaver attacking someone so something it definitely wrong with it, I’m waiting to hear the results. Layla is tramatised and probably won’t be on the kayak anytime soon.

I took a short video clip of the beaver attacking my kayak, and through my phone down and didn’t stop the recording. It sounds like a damn horror movie the way she way screaming and the water splashing. Im just glad it didn’t bite either of us. Our sissy bloodhound hid safely in the weeds far away during all of this.

He later added an update:

***UPDATE***
The PA Game Commission, PA Department of Health, and the PA Department of Agriculture called me today and confirmed that the beaver tested POSITIVE for rabies. Apparently that’s the first reported rabid beaver ever in Adams county.

Long story short, if you’re in the Gettysburg area this week be on the lookout for angry beavers.

Thankfully my only experience with rabies is watching Old Yeller on a family bus trip once (believe the ending was the first time I saw grown men cry) & an episode of This American Life I listened to on my commute about a woman attacked by a rabid raccoon at the end of her driveway:

The two of us are now holding this raccoon which is still hissing, and snarling, and clawing. And my husband, he says, I’m going to get a tire iron out of the car and try hitting it to kill it. So he goes and gets this tire iron out of the car. And he starts to hit it. And he figures he’ll hit it once or twice and he’ll kill it. Well, he starts hitting it, and he probably hit it between 15 and 20 times. And it’s still snarling and clawing.

So then I said to my son’s girlfriend, Olga– I said, Olga, go to the house and get a knife. And in the meantime, my son takes the tire iron. And my son starts beating on the raccoon. So for at least five minutes, they’re taking turns beating this raccoon. And about at the point where Olga is coming back and gets out of the car with these two big knives, the raccoon had died.

Hard pass. No thanks. I can’t handle it when the yellow jackets get aggressive in the Fall. I have literally used a baby I was holding as a blocker once without thinking… So I can only imagine how I’d be around relentless, extra strength zombie animals with a one-track mind for blood. I’m not an outdoors expert but I feel like my best bet is to stay in NYC & avoid all parks. I don’t give a dam.