Provincial wildlife experts downplay coyote danger

By Amy Woolvett

THE COAST GUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The tragic death of musician Taylor Mitchell, who was attacked by two coyotes while she was hiking in the Cape Breton Highlands, may raise concerns with Shelburne County residents over their own safety concerning coyotes.

But a Manager for the Department of Natural Resources says that people don’t have to worry any more than they did last week about coyotes. “It is terrible when it happens but the odds are very low of an attack,” says Michael O’Brien.

In fact there has only been one other fatality from coyotes in North America and in Nova Scotia there have been few attacks not causing serious harm and never outside of a national park.

He recalls another attack in the same park where a 14-year old girl successfully fought off a coyote attack. “She was able to fend it off with her arm and started kicking and hitting it,” says O’Brien. “She told her brother to walk and not run to get their father.”

That attack resulted in minor injuries and O’Brien says the girl responded in the best possible way. “Don’t run, but back away and if the animal gets threatening arm yourself with stick or rocks,” he says.

He explains that coyote attacks are most likely to take place where they have had a lack of negative contact with people, and where they have gotten used to the presence of people in their area that may also contain food sources like a compost heap or food coolers like at a national park.

He says that the Eastern coyote is typically a wolf and coyote mix and are usually weighing around 40 to 45 pounds. “Nothing is absolute,” he says. “But I wouldn’t worry about them because a typically behaving coyote does not attack.”