Otters attack woman near Bayfield

• North American river otter

Above is a North American river otter. Otters like this one bit the legs of a woman who was swimming Tuesday in Lake Owen near Drummond, Wis. 1999 file/Duluth News Tribune)

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A woman from Austria is getting rabies shots, after she was bitten by at least two otters while on vacation in northwest Wisconsin.

Brigitte France, 51, told the Duluth News-Tribune she was swimming on Lake Owen near Drummond in Bayfield County last Wednesday, when she heard a hissing sound behind her.

She then saw an otter swim away, and another one popped up.

France then swam toward the shore. She said her hands were on the sand when two otters bit her legs eight or nine times. France said it didn’t hurt very much.

After talking to her husband, who used to live in Duluth, she went to a nearby hospital where doctors ordered rabies shots.

She’ll get vaccinated again Monday, and two more times when she gets home to Austria.

Martha Minchak of Minnesota’s DNR told the Duluth paper that otters are not known to bite humans, and she never heard of such a thing before.

But Minchak said they are predators so “Who knows?”

Otters normally eat fish and waterfowl. Minchak said they might have seen France as a threat or as a food source.

Tags: outdoors, otters, bayfield, swimmer