When Lemurs attack: Sioux City edition
Several Sioux City residents have filed suit against the city in an attempt to keep their dogs, all declared vicious, from being euthanized.
This is new. Although people have owned dogs for as long as there’s been a Sioux City, those involved say they can’t remember anyone actually filing suit to save their dogs.
We asked the Siouxland District Health Department for dog-bite data in order to make sure this wasn’t due to an increase in the number of dog bites.
It wasn’t, but the data did have a few surprises.
In addition to tracking bites from typical suspects (dogs and cats), Siouxland District Health also lists other animals that bite.
Usually, this includes bats, squirrels, raccoons, gerbils, hamsters, rats, rabbits, and maybe a mouse or two.
Or a lemur.
That’s right, someone in Sioux City reported getting bit by a lemur.
I only know two things about lemurs. First, they are adorable. Two, they are from Madagascar – not Iowa.
Details are sketchy, but Siouxland District Health’s Chuck Cipperley said it happened this summer while at an exotic animal show.
“It was just a baby lemur,” Cipperley said. “I had to go to the internet to see what it looked like, too.”
A company from Nebraska was showing a baby lemur to spectators when the furry little creature hopped out of its handler’s arms.
“It just jumped down and they thought maybe it touched somebody’s hand,” Cipperley said.
Although the animal didn’t outright attack somebody, officials thought it would be best to quarantine the lemur just to be on the safe side.
It cleared the required 10-day quarantine without any problems and, presumably, went back to Nebraska without incident.
But not before going down in the record books as the first recorded lemur bite in Sioux City’s history.
