Sandro Garibaldi, a member of the regional council in Liguria for the League, was bitten on the hand by a wolf earlier this year. Garibaldi had interrupted the wolf in the process of killing some sheep. It’s not clear if the wolf in question was the same one that killed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s pet pony, Dolly.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel wasn’t bitten by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dog when she visited his home in Sochi back in 2007; she was just scared by it. However, she was pecked by an Australian rainbow lorikeet during a visit to a bird park in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 2021, causing her to scream in a similar fashion to when she used to see Silvio Berlusconi at European Council summits.
Back in Covid times, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro — who had dismissed the seriousness of the epidemic and criticized containment measures ordered by local governors, but also tested positive for the disease — was taking a walk while under quarantine at the presidential palace when 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. Rumors that Bloomberg is being bitten on the hand continuously were unconfirmed at the time of going to press.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was attacked by an ostrich at a safari park in Texas last year. Johnson’s wife, Carrie, posted a clip of the incident on Instagram in which he can be heard saying: “Cripes! Oh, fucking hell.”
On a more serious note, Greece’s King Alexander died after a monkey attacked him back in 1920. The king was walking in the grounds of a castle outside Athens when a Barbary macaque attacked his dog. Another monkey then bit the king, and the wounds soon became infected and turned septic. Three weeks later, he died aged 27.