Canadian Woman Attacked And Killed By Two Coyotes
October 29, 2009
*Scroll for Update*
An up and coming musician and young Canadian woman, Taylor Mitchell, who was solo hiking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia on Tuesday, was attacked by two coyotes and died from her injuries.
AOL News has more of what has happened. My prayers go out to the family and friends of Ms. Mitchell.
*Update*12:20 p.m. 10/29/09
As pertains to this coyote attack on the woman, Dr. Valerius Geist, professor emeritus University of Calgary, has offered some commentary, tips and advice.
In view of yesterday’s fatal attack on a 19 year old lady by two coyotes in Cape Breton National Park, please allow me a commentary, which I ask you to distribute to your affected colleagues.
1.Both coyotes and wolves have an identical manner of targeting alternative prey, and this process is drawn out and specific, so that one gets fair warning well ahead of the first attack by wolves or coyotes on people. This targeting process proceeds in steps. Please see the appended file Appendix B (from Will Graves 2007 Russian Wolves. Anxiety through the Ages. Detselig, Calgary, Alberta, Canada) for the process in wolves. (Also see “When Wolves Become a Problem to Humans” by Dr. Geist)
Please note, according to interviews with hikers and park staff, coyotes in the park had reached stages f to h. In short, if you are aware of this targeting process you would have been highly alarmed by coyotes showing stage f behavior. The coyotes were, clearly, on the way to attacking humans.
Note also the study of coyotes in urban parks targeting children (Baker, R. O. and R. M. Timm 1998. Management of conflict between urban coyotes and humans in southern California. Pp. 229-312 in R. O. Baker and A. C. Crabb eds. Proc. 18th Vertebrate Pest Conference, University of California, Davis). Also, the pattern of wounding as described by the press indicates that this attack was an exploratory one.
2. The coyotes in question were a colonizing, fringe population characterized by large size. This is a give-away informing that the coyotes in question have assumed the Dispersal phenotype, an epi-genetic adaptive syndrome of species during colonization. Such individuals are characterized by very bold assertive behavior and rapid learning. (See Chapter 6. How genes communicate with the environment – the biology of inequality. pp. 116-144. In Geist, V. 1978. Life Strategies, Human Evolution, Environmental Design. Springer Verlag, New York; Geist, V. 1989. Environmentally guided phenotype plasticity in mammals and some of its consequences to theoretical and applied biology. pp. 153 176. In M.N. Bruton (ed.) Alternative Life History Styles of Animals. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Or if you have my 1998 Deer of the World, please see pp. 3-8).
3.. I am all too keenly aware as a practicing ethologist that North American biologists have hopelessly muddled the understanding of habituation and its consequences, in part by our Yellowstone colleagues in their “disneyfication” of wolves. And I am afraid that some of our parks Canada colleagues may also be under that spell. You do not need feeding of coyotes to habituate them to people. Although it certainly helps and hastens the process of the coyote exploring people. Habituation is unconsummated exploration. I am appending a lengthy paper I gave in 2005 to the Wildlife Society, but for various reasons of no concern here have not published (excepting what is referred above to Appendix B).
Best regards, Val Geist
*Editor’s Note* If I can get that “appending”, I will post it here for you.
Tom Remington
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As Forest Gump would say, “hungry is as hungry does…”
And as coyotes are interbreeding with wolves and dogs, the offspring are getting larger and more capable of what hungry does…..