Thursday, October 29, 2009

Dances With Coyotes, Eh?

Article

In a rather bizarre incident, nineteen year-old Taylor Mitchell, an up and coming Canadian Folk Singer, was attacked and killed by a pack of coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park on Tuesday.
Chip Bird, the Parks Canada field unit superintendent for Cape Breton, said hikers saw the coyotes attacking Mitchell and called 911. She was airlifted to a hospital in Halifax, where she died about 12 hours later, he said.

Mitchell was recently nominated for Young Performer of the Year honors by Canadian Folk Music Awards. She was touring the Maritime provinces and had a break between gigs to go hiking Tuesday, her manager, Lisa Weitz, said in an e-mail.

"She loved the woods and had a deep affinity for their beauty and serenity," she wrote.

Canadian Folk Singer Taylor Mitchell

According to Bird, the area where the singer was attacked was popular and well trafficked. The park authorities are hunting down the coyotes and looking for other possibly aggressive animals in the area.
"Public safety is our primary concern," he said.

He said no other coyote attacks had ever occurred in the park. "We've had coyotes approach people too closely," he said, and about six years ago one nipped a person.

That animal was killed because of "lack of fear," he said.

But Tuesday's attack is "unprecedented and a totally isolated incident," he said.

Although a tragic event, Michael O'Brien, wildlife manager of furbearers and upland game for Nova Scotia, wants to assure us that, "Coyote attacks on humans are extremely rare."
It is "not expected or normal behavior," he said, although he said there had been aggressive incidents in Nova Scotia before, but no deaths.

Illness, injury and familiarity with humans can affect an animal's behavior, he said.

So this isn't something we need to worry about, it was just a clear-cut case of professional criticism. Next up, Simon Cowell murders everyone in Seattle.