COYOTE ATTACK: Coyotes have been known to pick off a cat or
small dog on occasion but we were shocked to read recently that a
Canadian musician was killed by coyotes while she was out hiking in
Nova Scotia.

John Lane, a former Bradfordian now living in Maryland, passes
along a clipping about an up-and-coming folk musician named Taylor
Mitchell who was attacked while hiking alone in Cape Breton
Highlands National Park in Canada.

She was airlifted to a Halifax hospital but died of the
injuries. Reports indicated her body was covered in bite wounds and
she was losing a lot of blood when paramedics arrived. The attack
occurred at the end of October.

Taylor, 19, was touring the East Coast to promote her new album,
according to a story in the New York Daily News.

“There’s been some reports of aggressive animals, so it’s not
unknown,” said Helene Robichaud, the park’s superintendent, in one
account of the attack. “But we certainly never have had anything so
dramatic and tragic.”

One story quoted wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft saying that
coyotes rarely attack humans because they are naturally shy
animals. It was possible, he said, the coyotes mistook Mitchell for
a deer or some other prey.

“It’s very unusual and is not likely to be repeated. We
shouldn’t assume that coyotes are suddenly going to become the big
bad wolf,” he said.

One expert suggested that the coyotes may have been
inexperienced hunters — hungry and desperate yearlings — and that
their predatory instinct was triggered by the singer fleeing
instead of standing her ground. “Most canids (coyotes, foxes, and
wolves) will attack prey that begin to run away from them. Maybe
that’s what she did. Unfortunately, there are no witnesses,” he
said.

The attack — only the second fatal coyote attack on a human ever
recorded in North America — set off speculation that the animals
may have been rabid or were actually a hybrid between a wolf and a
coyote. The previous fatal attack was in August 1981 when a child
was killed by a coyote near Glendale, Calif.

Our thanks to John for passing along this fascinating story.