Sandro Garibaldi, a regional council member in Liguria for the League, was bitten on the hand by a wolf earlier this year. Garibaldi had interrupted the wolf while it was attacking some sheep. It is unclear if this wolf was the same one that killed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s pet pony, Dolly.
A flock of Lories, arboreal parrots, made friends with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her visit to the bird park in Marlow. | Franzi Zoger/EPA
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel wasn’t bitten by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dog during her 2007 visit to his Sochi home; she was only startled. However, she was pecked by an Australian rainbow lorikeet at a bird park in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 2021, causing her to react in a way reminiscent of her encounters with Silvio Berlusconi at European Council summits.
During the Covid pandemic, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who downplayed the epidemic’s seriousness and criticized local containment measures, tested positive for the virus. While quarantined at the presidential palace, he was bitten on the hand by a rhea. “This rhea represents us,” posted Margarida Salomão of the Workers’ Party.
In 2009, then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was bitten on the hand by a groundhog. Reports of ongoing hand-biting incidents involving Bloomberg were unconfirmed at the time of publication.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was attacked by an ostrich at a Texas safari park last year. His wife, Carrie, shared a video of the encounter on Instagram, capturing him exclaiming: “Cripes! Oh, fucking hell.”
On a more serious note, Greece’s King Alexander died following a monkey attack in 1920. While walking in the grounds of a castle near Athens, a Barbary macaque attacked his dog. Another monkey then bit the king, leading to infected wounds that turned septic. He passed away three weeks later at the age of 27.
Leave a Reply