Fox attacks two hikers

Craig Leicht and Paul Janowski were enjoying their regular stroll along the three-mile loop of Prescott National Forest Trails 347 and 341 when a fox took a deadly interest in them. At 6:45 p.m. Thursday, the Prescott neighbors were ending an otherwise routine hike on a trail near Granite Mountain, a mile west of Prescott's municipal boundary and little more than a mile away from their homes, when the male animal attacked them. Thanks to a quick response, Leicht, who moved here from Texas in February, and Janowski fended off and killed what they think was a rabid fox close to the trails' far junction toward the bottom of a ravine. Neither of the men suffered bites or injuries. "I looked ahead and saw something crouching on the trail, and I thought it was a bobcat in a hunched-down, crouching position," Leicht said Friday about the fox encounter. "It was probably about 100 feet ahead or maybe more, so I bent down and picked up a rock just to scare it. By the time I stood up, this thing was about five feet away from me."...Daily Courier