Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old folk musician, was attacked by a wolf in 2009 while out hiking in Canada’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
She was ready to begin the well-known Skyline Trail when nearby climbers noticed the creatures getting close and unprovoked.
Wolf Killed A Woman In 2009
Mitchell was evacuated to a hospital in Halifax after witnesses contacted 911, but 12 hours later, she passed away from her wounds.
The death of 3-year-old Kelly Keene by a coyote on her family’s farm in 1981 was the first documented instance of a coyote assault in North America that resulted in an adult human fatality, raising concerns about whether it is any longer safe to coexist with these cuddly species.
Stan Gehrt, professor of Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources and director of the Urban Coyote Research Project, said in a statement, “We didn’t have good answers.”
But Gehrt seems to have finally provided some explanation for the matter following a lengthy examination into the incident.
He and a group of wildlife experts discovered that coyotes in the vicinity of Mitchell’s assault have adopted an odd dietary shift, which they reported in an article that was published last month in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Due to adverse climate circumstances driving the former away, they appear to be killing moose for sustenance rather than relying on smaller mammals like rodents, birds, or snakes.
Scientists Discovered Wolf’s Response To Human
The research surmises that these coyotes may have acquired the ability to attack larger mammals, such as humans, and are consequently more likely to kill humans.
These creatures are described as expanding their moose dependence. We’re also going a step further and claiming that they weren’t only scavenging; instead, they were occasionally slaughtering moose.
They struggle to do so, but since they had little to no other food if anything, that served as their prey, “explained Gehrt. And that causes disagreements with individuals you wouldn’t often interact with.
the study of coyotes
The Gehrt investigation discovered a few dozen less serious human-coyote encounters in the park both before and after the 2009 tragedy.
In order to track the animals’ movements and learn more about why they were acting in such surprisingly vicious ways, he and his colleagues even fitted them with devices that are essentially GPS trackers.
The relative risk that coyotes pose is relatively low, and even when you do have a conflict where a person is bitten, it’s pretty minor, he said.
“We had been telling communities and cities that. The fatality was heartbreaking and out of this world. It absolutely shocked me, that’s how shocked I was,” he said.
Read more: Patrick Lyoya family who was unjustly executed sues ex-cop Grand Rapids for $100 million
