Quick Take
- The real reason this squirrel started attacking people is neither aggression nor illness, and most residents were unknowingly making it worse. Why feeding caused attacks →
- One physical detail convinced experts that a single squirrel is responsible for every attack, and that detail is more distinctive than you'd expect from a common backyard animal. The caramel-colored clue →
- San Rafael isn't an isolated case. The Bay Area has a quiet history of squirrel attacks that keeps repeating for the same preventable reason. Novato's 2015 attacks →
- Wildlife officials have a plan if the squirrel strikes again, and it is more final than a simple relocation. Officials' capture plan →
Small animals can still cause real trouble when they lose their natural fear of people. In San Rafael, California, residents in the Lucas Valley neighborhood reported a string of unusual squirrel attacks that left at least two people needing emergency care for bites and scratches. Marin Humane confirmed the reports and said the behavior was unusual for squirrels.
While rabies is often the first concern when a wild animal acts aggressively, squirrels are not considered common rabies carriers. Wildlife officials suggested a more likely explanation: the squirrel may have been fed by people, raised around humans, or become too comfortable approaching them for food. When wild animals start associating people with meals, they can become bold, demanding, and sometimes aggressive.
In this slideshow, A-Z Animals looks at the San Rafael squirrel attacks, why experts believe the animal may have behaved this way, and what the incident teaches about feeding or handling wildlife. Even cute backyard animals are still wild, and keeping that boundary matters for both people and the animals themselves.
Lucas Valley Nightmare
On September 13th, 2025, a woman was attacked by a squirrel on her morning walk in San Rafael, California.
©Matt Gush/Shutterstock.com
The squirrel horror tale began about ten days ago in the Lucas Valley area of San Rafael, California. On September 13th (2025), one person was attacked by a brown squirrel out of nowhere. Joan Heblack was taking her morning walk through Lucas Valley when terror struck. A squirrel appeared, ran up, and clawed and bit at her legs. “It came out of nowhere. I didn’t see him running up to me at all,” she told ABC7.com. “It clamped onto my leg. The tail was flying up here. I was like, ‘Get it off me, get off me!’ I didn’t want to touch it.”
Drawing Blood
The squirrel bit the woman hard enough to draw blood from her arm.
©Fiona M. Donnelly/Shutterstock.com
Presumably, the squirrel then let go, at least long enough for Heblack to get out of there. The squirrel bit hard enough that it drew blood from Heblack’s arm. The wounds were severe enough to require immediate medical treatment, so she went to the emergency room. The squirrel terror in Lucas Valley, however, wasn’t over just yet.
Day Two
Only a day later, what is now presumed to be the same squirrel attacked a woman a few streets over.
©Nigel J. Harris/Shutterstock.com
It seems that the squirrel’s bloodlust was not yet sated, as it attacked another person the following day. While walking in the same area on September 14th, Isabel Campoy and her niece, Carmen, came face-to-face with the squirrel. The squirrel seemed even more aggressive this time as it went for Isabel Campoy’s head. “[The] Squirrel went from the floor, tried to jump up to my face. I tried to protect my face, my arm was completely overcome by the squirrel,” Campoy told reporters. “Finally, it jumped off, but by then, I was full of blood.”
Her niece Carmen echoed her sentiments: “When I saw the blood on her arm, I said, ‘Oh my God.'” In short order, the pair headed to the emergency room. Though she only required observation and slight treatment, the attack was traumatic.
On the Lookout
The squirrel’s aggression became such a problem that residents of the Lucas Valley area posted flyers around the neighborhood warning of the attacks.
©Dmytro Buianskyi/iStock via Getty Images
The flurry of attacks forced residents to post flyers in the area warning others about the violent squirrel. The flyer provided a description of the squirrel and a general area for the attacks: Diablo Circle and Mount Lassen Drive in the Lucas Valley area of San Rafael. While the flyer mentions the two people who went to the ER due to squirrel-induced injuries, it also mentions several other attacks that news reports couldn’t confirm. The series of attacks has been the talk of the town, not to mention on the Nextdoor app. Plus, people in the know believe one squirrel is the culprit.
Matching Description
Due to the unique coloring of the squirrel in both confirmed attacks, experts and eyewitnesses believe just one squirrel is responsible.
©gerd-harder/Shutterstock.com
Both experts and eyewitnesses believe that a single squirrel is responsible for the string of suburban attacks. That’s because not only did the two confirmed attacks happen in the same place, but the squirrel in both incidents had a unique look. “The squirrel has a particular coloring. He’s kind of caramel color or a golden color and that’s a little bit more unique,” Lisa Bloch, director of marketing and communications for Marin Humane, told reporters.
Human Dependence
Experts blame the attacks on squirrels becoming dependent on humans for food and retaliating when their needs aren’t met.
©Liudmila Chernetska/iStock via Getty Images
While it’s unusual for squirrels to act as aggressively as the one in question, it can happen, especially when they become dependent on humans for food. “The squirrel will go up to a human assuming they’re going to get fed and then, because the human might react, understandably, in a defensive way or angry way…,” Bloch explained. “The squirrel can get frustrated, and that can lead to the squirrel lashing out.”
To Catch a Culprit
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife intends to capture and kill the squirrel if it attacks any more people.
©Tony Quinn/Shutterstock.com
While there haven’t been attacks in the last week or so, that doesn’t mean the squirrel culprit won’t come after other people. The spokesperson (Bloch) from Marin Humane said that the organization is working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to decide on the best way to respond. The organizations, however, assured concerned residents that they will likely work to capture the rodent if it continues its aggressive behavior. Luckily, squirrels are not known to carry or transmit rabies.
Vanessa Potter from WildCare in San Rafael reinforced the theory that the squirrel has some kind of dependence on humans. “If they associate people with food, they’re not afraid of them. They will look for food. If they don’t get it, there can be frustrations. They can be territorial of their space,” Potter told ABC7.com.
One Town Over
Ten years ago, a squirrel attacked eight people in Novato, just one town over from San Rafael.
©Matt Gush/Shutterstock.com
While incidents of squirrels attacking humans are quite rare, these attacks in San Rafael are not the first of their kind in the San Francisco Bay Area. Plus, they reinforce the idea that squirrel attacks are ultimately the fault of humans. Ten years ago, in Novato, the town just north of San Rafael, a series of squirrel attacks left residents shaken. According to this news report from NBC Bay Area, eight separate people were attacked by what was believed to be a human-raised squirrel over several weeks in the Pleasant Valley Area in 2015. Five of those attacks happened near the intersection of Sutro Avenue and Vineyard Road.
Victims included a child, a teacher at Pleasant Valley Elementary School, and a person in their garage. In nearly every case, a squirrel appeared and crawled up their bodies, biting their arms, legs, and heads in the process. Other reports suggested that the squirrel even jumped out of a tree and attacked passersby. While city officials failed to find the squirrel responsible, they ensured that every person bitten received rabies shots.
Squirrel Attack Precedents
Less than a decade before the Novato attacks, squirrels at Cuesta Park in Mountain View attacked several people.
©Michael Vi/Shutterstock.com
There must be something in the San Francisco Bay Area’s water supply because squirrel attacks seem to happen every couple of years. In October 2006, a 4-year-old boy was bitten by a squirrel at Cuesta Park in Mountain View, a city in the South Bay. This attack came on the heels of several other incidents at the same park. The boy underwent treatment for a potential rabies infection, despite the unlikely transmission. Nevertheless, Department of Fish and Game officials took drastic steps to “dispatch” problem squirrels in the area.
When questioned about the spate of attacks at Cuesta Park, experts offered different reasons. One said that the fall brings higher squirrel activity than usual as they prepare for winter. Another expert laid the blame on people feeding squirrels to such an extent that the creatures lose their fear of humans and retaliate when food isn’t given. While there have been reports of aggressive squirrels and squirrel attacks in places like Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area has experienced several notable incidents of aggressive squirrel behavior in recent years.
