CAPE ELIZABETH – Two Lights State Park was evacuated Thursday afternoon after a gray fox bit a young boy and his mother and attacked a park ranger.

Park officials credited a ranger, John Horton, with preventing more harm to the boy, his mother and other park visitors by driving off the fox with a weed trimmer.

After the attack, Horton put the boy and his mother in a secure bath house area. Both were taken by ambulance to Maine Medical Center in Portland. Authorities would not release their names, but said their injuries appeared to be minor.

Cape Elizabeth police eventually subdued the fox at the park’s main gate, where an officer hit it on the head with a nightstick. Corey Hamilton, the animal control officer for South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, killed the fox with two shots from his rifle.

The fox’s body was taken to Augusta to be tested for rabies.

“It’s very common to have foxes in that park,” said Jeanne Curran, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Conservation, which manages Two Lights State Park. “They like to hunt mice and moles. This fox looked healthy, but it was very aggressive.”

Park Manager John Polackwich said Ron Ahlquist, a park ranger who is also a Scarborough town councilor, was the first person to encounter the fox.

Ahlquist, who is typically stationed at nearby Crescent Beach State Park, had come to Two Lights to pick up his service truck. He said he got quite a surprise when the fox darted out at him from under the truck and started nipping at his feet.

“It attacked my sneakers. It finally let go and started making some strange noises” like chirping barks, Ahlquist said. “It tried to bite my sneakers three times. On the third try it was really getting ferocious. I had to kick it off. It wasn’t very playful. It was a fierce thing.”

Ahlquist, who was not injured, said the fox disappeared into a wooded section of the park.

Polackwich said rangers closed the trails in the wooded section of the park — about four acres — and notified authorities.

The fox eventually entered the park’s playground, where the 3-year-old boy decided to touch the animal. “He thought it was a cat and tried to pet it,” Polackwich said.

The fox bit the boy on his arm and calf before biting the boy’s mother on her leg, he said. At that point, Horton grabbed a weed trimmer — it was not running — and used it as a weapon to drive the fox from the playground.

Horton declined to be interviewed Thursday evening.

Polackwich estimated that 50 people were in the 41-acre oceanfront park when it was evacuated around 1:30 p.m.

Rangers and police went throughout the park, notifying visitors that they had to leave. Rangers used an all-terrain vehicle to help some elderly visitors get to their cars. Everyone cooperated and no injuries were reported, Curran said.

The park reopened at 4:15 p.m. after the fox had been killed.

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com

 

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