Swede bloodied in surprise beaver attack

Taking advantage of the first truly hot summer weekend in Stockholm, Sofie Adde was blissfully unaware that a casual dip would end in blood and stitches after a beaver mistook her thigh for lunch. 

 Sofie Adde from the Gröndal neighbourhood of Stockholm was enjoying her first swim of the summer in the Mälaren Lake when the beaver pounced.

“I went out for a quiet dip and had swum out a few meters when I noticed something underneath the water. Next thing I felt a pain in my thigh and up came the head of the beaver,” Adde, 40, told The Local.

 “It gave me quite a surprise,” the startled swimmer added. “I wasn’t sure what was going on as the beaver (dived) back down and I got scared and swam away immediately.”

 Brace yourselves for the next fortnight of inflamed beaver articles in which Swedes cower to avoid the terrifying rodent menace. Of course this beaver got away so we can’t actually be sure it was a beaver and not an otter…but at least Adde was a good bit braver than the fishermen from Bellarus.

Following the attack, Adde had to have stitches and a tetanus shot. She doesn’t harbour any ill-feeling towards the beaver, however, whom she claims she has seen before.

 “I’ve been down to the lake several times and I’ve seen this beaver in the past. There are a couple of beavers there and it is very unusual for something like this to happen.”

 “The bite wasn’t particularly painful and to be honest it was more funny than anything else.” 

Now there’s a heroine with a sturdy heart and a pretty plucky constitution. Adde send us your address because you get a beaver tshirt.

Didrik Van Hoenacker, a biologist at the Natural History Museum, laughed when he heard of the attack.  “She must have had bad luck and collided with the beaver. It’s not like they normally lurk in the water,” he told Aftonbladet.

Ahh Didrik! You are such an amazing counterpart to the panic button all the world wants to push when it comes to chomping terrible beaver-sharks!  Nicely done. Are you  and Adde the only level heads in the country or is this a national thing?

Beavers are just like other wild animals as they get defensive but it is rare to even get that close to them,” Magnus Enquist, a professor in animal behaviour at Stockholm University told Aftonbladet.

Sigh. Maybe I will move to Sweden. Maybe we all should.

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And if you’re not too busy packing thursday, maybe you should do this?

Thursday, July 11

Beavers of Martinez

Join Heidi Perryman, Founder of Worth A Dam, for a talk on the Beavers of Martinez. Dr. Perryman shares the story of how one beaver family won over the hearts of the people of Martinez. This North Bay community took a crash course in beavers when a mating pair moved into a downtown stream. Concerned that their dam would cause flooding, the city proposed killing the beavers, but resident outcry encouraged them to try humane solutions instead. A flow device was installed at the dam and this controlled pond height, allowing the beavers to safely remain. Heidi Perryman is part of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) WATER Institute California Working Beaver Group, whose mission is to promote understanding of the importance of healthy watersheds. Dr. Perryman recently co-authored a paper on the historic range of the North American Beaver.

Click here to read the current Bay Nature article on the resurgence of Bay Area beavers.

For more information about Perryman and Worth A Dam, please visit www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress.

Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, San Francisco, CA 94114. For more information, go to www.sfns.org or contact Patrick Schlemmer at jkodiak@earthlink.net or (415) 225-3830.

Sure would be nice to see some familiar faces in the audience!