Search fruitless for javelina that bit Dutch tourist
The hunt for a wild javelina stretched into the fourth day Monday after the beast bit an Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum visitor Friday afternoon. The 45-year-old Dutch tourist (Onno) did not wish to be named and declined an interview. He is listed in fair condition at University Medical Center, where he is recovering from emergency surgery. "It apparently hit some sort of artery," said Arizona Game & Fish spokeswoman Aninna Thornburg. The man's wounds bled substantially and he was airlifted to UMC. If the javelina is captured, it will be killed so it can be tested for rabies, the only way to test for the disease.
Museum staffers, Game & Fish employees and the wildlife services department of the U.S. Department of Agriculture have searched for the javelina on
museum grounds. "There's been no sign of it," museum Associate Executive Director Craig Ivanyi said Monday. "We've been out there
pretty much 24 hours a day." Thornburg said six traps were set at the museum, 2021 N. Kinney Road, to increase the likelihood of snaring the beast.
"Anything smelly will work as bait," she said, but there's no saying when a javelina may feel like surfacing. "They can hide for days," she said. There is also no way of being certain that a captured wild javelina would be the one that bit the tourist, Ivanyi said. The man's injuries occurred when he approached a javelina on the path near the museum's javelina exhibit and attempted to make it his bitch. This particular peccary was not part of the regular exhibit, which is enclosed in mesh, but rather a wild one that had somehow gotten on museum grounds, museum officials said.
The javelina bit the tourist on the calf, Thornburg said. When he bent down to shoo the animal away, it then bit his hand. "Javelina have very large canine teeth on the bottom" Thornburg said.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/89757.php
I agree. It's like, just read the first two chapters and you get the idea already.
