I caught the following disturbing article by the Canadian Press tonight concerning a fatal coyote attack in Canada:
By staff writers
news.com.au
October 29, 2009 08:04am
A PROMISING young Canadian musician has been attacked and killed by coyotes while on a tour promoting her new album.
Taylor Mitchell, 19, was considered a rising star of the folk music scene, having just earned a Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination.
She was hiking alone on the Syline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park when a pair of coyotes attacked her.
Tourists rushed to her aid when they heard her screams and found Mitchell bleeding heavily from mulitple wounds "all over her body", according to The Canadian Press.
"She was losing a considerable amount of blood from her wounds," paramedic Paul Maynard told TCP.
One of the animals was later shot by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but the other got away.
Park officials said it was highly unusual for coyotes to be involved in such an aggressive attack.
Mitchell was due to play at a concert after her hike and was on her first tour of the Candaian east coast.
This is an incredibly rare occurrence. Truth be told, I've never even heard of a coyote attack on a human. They are usually very cowardly when it comes to interacting with humans.
The whole incident goes to show that you must take nothing for granted when out in the field. Whenever possible, a partner should be present. The story really sent a shiver down my spine as I had a strange encounter with a coyote this past weekend. If you read down to my post from October 25th below you will note that I mentioned a very unusual and amazing experience in the last line of the article. The experience involved a coyote. I will write that up tomorrow. Once you read what happened, I think you will understand why what seemed to be a pretty cool experience now gives me a serious case of the creeps.
Until then...
this coyote attack is especially strange to me since I've lived around coyotes my whole life without any issues (in AZ) - they seem to be afraid of people
ReplyDeleteIt is the same here in Texas. The coyotes here have always been extremely shy to downright cowardly. This is what makes this attack so rare.
ReplyDeleteI am sure they will test the one coyote they shot for rabies. I doubt this will come up positive as there were two animals running together. Could drought or some other environmental condition cause enough stress to get these animals to become this aggressive? No answers...
Here in Connecticut people are warned to travel in pairs. There is even a certain spot on a water authority property where a aggressive coyote lives, and the company has put up signs warning people not to travel alone and for the party members to carry large walking sticks for self defense.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure it was a coyote im in AZ and they are quite cowardly animals I was within 10 feet of one once and it saw me and ran as fast as it can the other way
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