A 10-year-old girl was swimming at Seneca Creek State Park last week when she “felt a tug and [a] furry object,” according to a police report.

That fur turned out to be a beaver, which bit her three times, improbably marking the third beaver attack at a Maryland state park this summer.

In the week since the Aug. 13 attack in Montgomery County, Department of Natural Resources staffers found a dead beaverthat later tested positive for rabies. Although it’s possible, or even likely, that the dead beaver was the same one that attacked the girl, that remains unclear.

Seneca Creek has been partially closed as staffers search for other signs of sick animals.

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Two people were attacked by separate rabid beavers — probably a mated pair — in Cunningham Falls State Park in July and August. Portions of that park in Frederick County, including the area around Hunting Creek Lake, the site of the attacks, have remained closed.

Staffers have been canvassing the area and using thermal imaging to scan for beavers.

The Seneca Creek attack occurred more than 30 miles away and is unrelated to the Cunningham Falls incidents, state officials have said.

The 10-year-old girl was swimming at a bend in Seneca Creek near Berryville Road as part of a summer camp outing. “Camp staff pulled the beaver off” the girl, according to a police report obtained by The Banner on Thursday.

The report stated that representatives of Calleva Summer Camp, an outdoor adventure summer camp based in Poolesville, contacted the natural resources department about the incident.

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“Child is calm at this time,” read one entry in the report, about an hour after the attack.

The girl’s mother took her to a hospital. In cases where a human is bitten by a potentially rabid animal, the victim typically undergoes a series of vaccine shots. That treatment is highly effective; if untreated, rabies is almost certainly fatal.

The natural resources department initially said that the girl had been canoeing. However, the department clarified that the girl was actually swimming and wading — but a separate group in a canoe later reported that a beaver had charged their boat that same day.

After biting the girl, the beaver “escaped,” according to a news release. Minutes after learning of the attack, staffers with the state’s Wildlife and Heritage Service were en route to “dispatch the beaver,” according to the police report.

The incident happened before 3 p.m. that day, and staffers believed they had located the beaver’s lodge — its dome-shaped wooden home — by 10 p.m. that evening. However, they were unable to find the animal.

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It mirrored the July 26 attack at Cunningham Falls, where a 13-year-old boy heard a splash while swimming and then felt a bite. He had to be airlifted to a hospital.

Then, in early August, a fisherman at Cunningham Falls who’d been shooting video of the beaver was bitten and drove himself to receive treatment. In those cases, the beaver was found, killed and later tested positive for rabies.

Rabies is exceptionally rare in rodents such as beavers. From 2022 to 2025, about 900 animals, mostly raccoons, tested positive for rabies in Maryland. None of them were beavers. Three within one month is baffling.

Then again, Charles Rupprecht, who served as the CDC’s rabies program chief for 20 years, has learned not to be shocked by rabies, one of the oldest known infectious diseases.

“Just when we think we know something about it,” he said last week, “Boom. It surprises us.”