Three people were bitten by a fox in Weedsport Monday as the aggressive animal attacked two people who tried to chase it away after it bit a 4-year-old.

Weedsport Police Administrator Jack McNeil said the child was playing on a swing set at 2635 W. Brutus Street when gray fox came up and bit her on the bottom of her foot at about 3:45 p.m.

The child's mother yelled and swung a lawn chair cushion at the animal and the fox bit her on the leg. When a man came out of the house to try and chase the fox away, it bit him on the leg and then ran off.

McNeil said he was contacted by a Cayuga County 911 dispatcher and summoned the help of state Department of Environmental Conservation officer Chris Nielson. The officers found a fox nearby and shot it dead. McNeil said the fox that was killed was believed to be the one who did the biting because it had a scratch across its nose likely caused by its confrontation with the people it attacked.

A second fox was found dead under a nearby barn. Both animals will be tested for rabies and results will be known later this week.

McNeil declined to identify the people who were bitten. He said the woman drove herself and her child to the emergency department at Auburn Memorial Hospital. The man said he would seek medical treatment Tuesday.

The Cayuga County Department of Health and Human Services recently acknowledged several cases of foxes acting aggressively in the county.

McNeil advises that people encountering animals behaving strangely should stay away from the animal and call 911.

Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of The Citizen.