Coyotes Hate Music

Pretty Tragic right here ...

Taylor Mitchell, 19, died yesterday as a result of injuries sustained in a Coyote attack on the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia, Canada. Taylor, a folk singer-songwriter from Toronto, was hiking alone when two coyotes attacked her. Her cries for help alerted other hikers who then called emergency services. Although police shot and wounded one of the Coyotes, both animals initially escaped and one remains at large. Taylor was in critical condition when she was airlifted by helicopter to Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax. Sadly, her injuries were so severe that she passed away on Wednesday morning.

Taylor Mitchell, a vibrant young artist with remarkable vocals, was recently nominated in the category of “2009 Young performer of the year” by the Canadian Folk Music Awards (CFMA). Taylor had just begun an East-Coast tour to promote her debut album, “For Your Consideration,” and her stunning vocals prompted Exclaim magazine to comment, “When George Bernard Shaw so famously noted that youth was wasted on the young, he hadn’t heard Taylor Mitchell sing.”

Coyote attacks are extremely rare. Indeed, in the USA there has only been one documented death attributed to a Coyote in the last three centuries. In 1981, a young toddler in Glendale, California was killed by a coyote as a consequence of her parents feeding the animal on a regular basis. The Coyote (Canis Latrans) with its distinctive brown coat and white belly is found in all forty-nine continental states - there are large Coyote populations in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.Although the Coyote usually hunts at night, it can become habituated to humans and can be extremely aggressive, especially if it is fed by humans either deliberately or accidentally, notably via trash cans and scraps left behind on picnic tables.

 

 What Makes this even scarier is that there is NO RABIES THEORY involved in this story whatsoever ... 

LOUISBOURG, N.S. — Experts have determined that a coyote believed to be involved in a shocking attack on a young hiker on a Cape Breton trail was neither diseased nor hungry.
Parks Canada staff tracked and destroyed a coyote last Tuesday, hours after Taylor Mitchell, a folksinger from Toronto, was mauled by two of the animals in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
The 19-year-old later died in a Halifax hospital.
The federal agency said the Atlantic Veterinary Centre has done tests on the coyote and preliminary results suggest it was involved in the attack on the Skyline Trail, which remained closed Monday.
"There's no evidence of rabies or other disease or any other physical element of the animal that might have led to this attack," said Chip Bird, a field unit superintendent with Parks Canada in Cape Breton.
Bird said the coyote was a 14-kilogram adult female in "really healthy shape." There was also evidence that the coyote had food in its system.
"This was not a hungry or starving animal," he said.
There have been a number of theories as to why the coyotes attacked Mitchell as she hiked alone on the popular trail. Coyotes are considered shy animals that are typically fearful of humans.
Some experts have suggested the coyotes were young, inexperienced and unafraid of humans. Others have theorized the animals were diseased.
Bird said Parks Canada staff are talking to other wildlife experts in hopes of determining what happened.
Meanwhile, the search continues on the Skyline Trail and other trails nearby for the second coyote involved in the attack.