Can a fox shoot the hunter?

A few years ago, the news agencies beat out a surprising story: a fox shot the hunter and sent him to the hospital.

The facts.

In the Grodno region of Belarus, a hunter shot a fox, only succeeding in wounding it.

After shooting the fox, the man approached it trying to immobilize and kill it with his bare hands.

The animal reacted and, in the resulting scuffle, with one paw pulled the trigger of the rifle, letting off the shot still in the barrel.

Then it fled.

The man ended up in the hospital with a bullet in his leg.

News agencies have all credited the fox with extraordinary cunning (what fox would be otherwise?) and, I would add, the ability to maintain a cool head after getting a gunshot wound.

I take the liberty of welcoming the story skeptically: I am more inclined to believe that the fox, having felt the man approaching, gathered the energy to sell his skin dearly.

Now we come to the hunter.

Why finish off the fox with bare hands?

One theory is that another bullet could have ruined the fur.

The other is that the hunter wanted to confront the animal on an equal footing, eliminating the advantage of the firearm: an epic hero.

Was the animal wounded and the parity an illusion? Details.

Whatever the real version, the fact remains that the hunter was at least reckless.

For,

when all is lost, even a sheep can become a tiger:
can you imagine a fox?

And of this, the hunter, seemed not to have been aware:

will he have learned?