NOTE:  This is not the fox that shot the hunter.
This is a red fox captured by trail camera last January in my meadow  in back of my house.


There are perks if you subscribe to various wildlife related news feeds.  And that is something freelance nature writers like me need to do to find fresh fodder of nature's way and man's foolishness.  This breaking news tale from Belarus is worth sharing.  And it is weird.
 But first I had to figure out exactly where Belarus is located.

I knew it was someplace in Europe. A quick fact check with a website run by our Central Intelligence Agency produced a map showing Belarus is landlocked, surrounded by Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and the Ukraine.  Fox hunting is popular in their farming region.
 On to the story, first reported from Moscow.

Here is what I know.  A man showed up in a hospital with a leg wound.  And just  like here in Oakland County when you show up in an emergency room with a gun shot wound  police are notified.  The strange tale the man with gun shot wound to his leg  told  investigators went more or less like this:               

I shot the fox.
     ( Fox wounded but alive. )
 Fox shoots me during a scuffle. 
    

       The hunter approached the wounded fox with the intent to "finish it off" with the butt of his rifle.   According to the prosecutor for the Grodno Region of Belarus, "The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw."

And Mr. Fox made a getaway.

That is all I know, but here is what I think:

A.  Hunter shot himself by mistake and invented a story the prosecutor swallowed.

B. Hunter had a good dose of alcohol mixed with his blood and was foolish in his fox scuffle.

C. This hunter was not the sharpest tack in the box of Belarus fox-hunters.