The mother of Taylor Mitchell, the 19-year-old attacked and killed by coyotes while hiking in a national park in Cape Breton, has released a statement. It includes the following passage;
When the decision had been made to kill the pack of coyotes, I clearly heard Taylor’s voice say, “please don’t, this is their space”. She wouldn’t have wanted their demise, especially as a result of her own. She was passionate about animals, was an environmentalist, and was also planning to volunteer at the Toronto Wildlife Centre in the coming months.
Nice of her to think of others during her time of grief.
Update – This comments thread has been nominated for the distinguished SDA Best Comments Thread Ever Award, as exemplified by the following;
I concede I have lost this exchange simply because of the obvious omission on my part regarding the resourcefulness of humans as illustrated by the appropriate Star Trek reference.
Posted by: blanks
[..]Coyotes like most wild animals are very shy when it comes to humans, like fox’s they can smell you from a km or more.
Try hunting one sometime. Clipped one with a .22 once from about .5k.
But then I learned to shoot in a armoury basement.[..]
Yeah and then you learned that outside the basement you need a bigger gun. Even with .222 Rem a .5km hit is just plain luck.
In my youth, here in SW Ontario, ground hog/woodchucks were a problem species and then about mid-60’s .22 rimfire was obsolete as scarcity made engagement ranges longer—then coincidentally coyotes became common rather than rare/anecdotal and pasture poodles disappeared. Sheep grazing became hazardous….
The early rarity of coyotes and pandemic of groundhogs was the result of 19th-early 20th century hunting/trapping pressure—then disinterest and the Bambi-culture….
Now a species that I never saw in the wild before my 20’s now occasionally confronts me in the pole-barn……my Walther comforts me….
Reducing hunting pressure on Black Bears now has them a lethal menace throughout most of Ontario.
A Olympic biathlon(skiing and shooting) gal was jogging just outside Quebec City a while back…no gun and the bear ran her down……
Hereabouts increased forest cover now results in occasional Sasquatch sightings and frequent verbalization’s…my take is that it is indeed fortunate they are much smarter than coyotes.
Coyotes are more dangerous than most ppl know,ive had a couple experiences with them on hunting trips where ive shot them in defence.Last year when i was on a moose hunt,I sat and watched a pack of five track my exact trail up on to ridge where i was sitting and when i showed myself they looked at me and kept coming,three of those made it back to the woods.
Unless wild animals learn to fear and respect humans, often through being shot at, someone else will suffer a similar fate. What the mother is saying is “Don’t teach wild animals to not attack humans so that they may continue to consider us as weak prey.”
I think it was Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom that shovelled lemmings off a cliff. Also staked out goats for the tiger. My favourite was Jim jumping out of a helicopter at about 20 feet into 1 foot of water to save something or other. I couldn’t understand how two coyotes could take a healthy human when there was quite a few people on the trail but it happen. I’ll take my hiking staff on the trails along the river from now on.
“it’s their space”???
I cannot believe people out here in Lotus Land who claim the coyotes were here first and therefore humans are encroaching on the coyotes’ space.
This is wolf and bear country! Coyotes are prairie animals. The coyotes emigrated to the BC mountains by literally jumping empty CPR railcars, found a food source and, being very adaptable creatures, stuck around.
The bears and wolves didn’t build the CPR, so I guess the humans must have been here before the coyotes.
Speedy- The lemmings were killed in a Disney movie called White Wilderness. The lemming scene was shot in Calgary. The lemmings were tossed into the Bow River. They’d been captured by Eskimo kids, somewhere in the arctic. It was a great movie, but probably wouldn’t meet modern standards for cruelty to animals.
There was a descent documentary on CBC’s Fifth Estate about how these wildlife films are made. Even a Disney family member made candid statements about how they faked natural settings. I was very dissappointed to find out my favourite wildlife scenes were actually fake.
interesting article on the wolf/coyote hybrids.
http://www.thestar.com/unassigned/article/681632
Wolves are just misunderstood dogs, the T-Star & Paul Watson tell me so.
sasquatch
Well an AR-15 would be even better but while shooting backwards with a mirror on my ass I’ve been known to miss occasionally.
Sounds to me like a 12 Guage would likely serve your needs better than a rifle.
…the same Paul Watson who claimed he’d get right in amongst a pack to prevent BC’s aerial wolf kill some decades ago. He never did get more than a short distance off the Alaska Highway, returning to the highway each night. The fool & his companions were laughing stock to most of Fort Nelson & viewed as the frauds they were. The Province & Vancouver’s enlightened seemed to view them in a different light…
Illiquid Assets:
To say, “We cannot defend ourselves without technology” is the same as saying, “Take away a dog’s teeth and he can’t defend himself.”
Technology is the result of who we are as humans. The ability to experiment and calculate a future outcome from putting this and that together is an inherent part of being human. What you are trying to do is say, “take away that which gives humans their upper-hand and drop them into a controlled environment where they can use their resourcefulness to strategize and build tools, and then they’re screwed.”
Well, la-dee-da. So what? Take away any creature’s best asset and drop them in a cage match with another animal over which they’d normally have the advantage and, yes, the tables will be turned.
“I would put money on it that if I dropped almost anyone into a situation where you have no defense but “rocks and sticks” and a pack predator decided to kill you, trust me you would be dead”
Yes, because you set the rules. You played God by dropping them into that situation with no room to manouvre or think. And if I lobotomized a cat, it wouldn’t have a chance against that squirrel.
But, put humans in that same situation and give them time and room, and they will emerge the victors.
That is what I mean by “top of the food chain.”
Taylor Mitchell: Not as fast as the Road Runner.
Whoops, “where they can use their resourcefulness” should have been, “where they can’t use their resourcefulness.”
I guess that’s what the “Preview” button is for.
yes it was a very lucky shot and probably closer to .4k really.
My time at the Essex-Kent,Scottish wasn’t all spent swinging from vines.
I haven’t heard of this “hybrid” coyote, maybe they’ve crossed with some big dog or possibly a wolf?
I live in southern SW Ontario and there hasn’t been a black bear around here for close to a hundred years that I know of.
Rarely a wolf, fox or coyote is even left.
Lot’s of smaller varmint’s similar to Kate’s trophy.
Except we don’t have the prairie dog, thankfully.
bykeman
your comments are what the spam filters are for
A healthy respect for and fear of the power of the forces of nature is just common sense. “Fear of G*d is the beginning of wisdom,” says the Good Book. Likewise, fear of “nature red in tooth and claw” (Alfred Lord Tennyson) wouldn’t be a bad starting point for Walt Disney-, WWF-, Suzuki-, TWC-fed urbanites.
I still don’t see why city dwellers can’t take on the increasing, and increasingly problematic, population of raccoons in our backyards and alleyways. They are pests extraordinaire who have no fear of humans; the garbage they strew is a health hazard, they do thousands of dollars of damage to electrical wiring once they get inside a house, creating a fire hazard, and they are prone to rabies.
I can’t figure out why their care and nurture trump my family’s and mine — except for the aren’t-they-cute, “equality” propaganda spewed by the Greenies and like-minded dingbats.
And, what really rankles, is that humans pay all the bills. When raccoons start paying taxes, then maybe I’ll soften my attitude towards them.
“But, put humans in that same situation and give them time and room, and they will emerge the victors.”
I notice you used the plural, not “a human” which is at the heart of my point, we are herd animals. I was not playing god in the scenario I am quite accurately describing the scenario at the heart of the news story that prompted this discussion. A HUMAN put themselves into a situation where they did not have room and time to think because they had the same attitude as you that you are the dominant species in the habitat and have been conditioned to not recognize the danger, it is a result of civilization illustrated in the many movies of Walt Disney.
The coyotes are not going to wait for you to come up with a plan, sharpen a spear, make an axe. So once again you are missing the point and trying to justify your false view of man’s dominance of the food chain, it is this sort of arrogance that leads to people walking in the woods alone without any protection.
“Well, la-dee-da. So what? Take away any creature’s best asset and drop them in a cage match with another animal over which they’d normally have the advantage and, yes, the tables will be turned”
Your best asset is technology that you cannot replicate, you start with a gun, run out of bullets in a pack predator attack, and you now have a club, you will tire faster than the predators and may even drop it. Then you are left with what? a quick wit and a “la-dee-da”?
A Toothless declawed bear still has mass, speed, strength and stamina, want to go few rounds? I will even give you a knife… and about 1 minute to prove your point.
Oz, there was an excellent program on National Geographic on the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone. The ranger showed a stream with eroding banks and very little plant growth and few animals, birds and insects. Over just a few short years of the wolves returning they had claimed their place as top predator and reduced the deer and elk that were starving after over grazing their habitat. The wolves also killed off most of the coyotes.
The same stream was now a lush pond created by beavers and the trees and shrubs had regrown and all sorts of animals and birds had also returned. It was amazing to see the impact of the wolves on the ecosystem. There was now a balance and nature was thriving again.
Whether its sharks in the oceans or bears on land elimating the top predators will eventually reduce or destroy the richness of nature.
well said “DAVE” !!
Paul in calgary
Okay on Illiquid Assets comments going have to disagree. Come on we have all seen the Star Trek when Capt James T. Kirk had to fight that stunt man in a bad lizard suit. Before you knew it Jimmy had made a spear and a crude cannon. One almost dead lizard.
“Your best asset is technology”
No, your best asset is the superior, thinking, calculating mind. Technology is a symptom/product of the superior mind – not the cause.
My only point (and my original point that I said you didn’t get) is that it is our intelligence and ability to reason that makes it so we can rightly claim to be the “top of the food chain.” You speak as though technology is just there. As if it somehow appeared (from where, I don’t know) and we are lucky to have it because, if it were taken from us (by what, I don’t know), we’d lose our self-perception as being on the top – as though that assertion is wrong.
I’m saying our minds beat out all of the claws, teeth and brute strength that can be found in any animal. Long before guns, humans were proving that.
Put a human (note the singular) in a situation where they are forced (empty-handed) to battle – let’s say, a grizzly and you are right, they’ll get routed. Put a human in an environment where they can evade, study the situation, and have time to think and I’ll put my money on the human. That one human may indeed wind up dead. But, I think the odds are on the side of the human to at least live longer than the bear. Even if it means simply finding a way not to fight.
Human history is on my side.
I’ve yet to kill my first coyote and that’s even after shooting at them for over 40 years. When I was a kid the only time you’d see a coyote was perhaps briefly in the distance and it would be gone before you could raise a rifle to your shoulder. Now they come in closer but I’ve still found them damn hard to kill as they are unpredictable and the last coyote hunt I went on when I moved in my ambush position the coyote that I had my sights on ran straight at me and, while it did get me a great image of a highly magnified coyote face in the crosshairs, it wasn’t the shot I was hoping for and I missed.
Coyotes are rather fragile animals and two of them should not be able to kill an adult human. Humans are far larger than coyotes and also have the advantage of being able to pick up rocks and large sticks. A 6′ stout stick swung hard will kill or severely injure a coyote if it connects. Chimpanzees are able to kill large cats using this method. The only adult human that can be killed by two coyotes is one who has never been exposed to danger and is under the delusion that natural animals behave like those in disney movies.
When it comes to large numbers of pack animals attacking, a rifle is preferred for defense as the difficulty of fighting off multiple smaller attackers increases as a power function of the number of attackers.
I never go into the bush unarmed. In simpler times this just meant carrying a rifle with me whenever I went for a hike but this practice is frowned upon now so I always carry a large knife and before I get too far into the woods always make a point of finding a good stout walking stick which will make it difficult for any attacking animal to get in close without sustaining a lot of damage in the attempt. I’d much prefer carrying my M1 Garand, despite the weight, but a good stick and 8″ of razor sharp steel does even the odds quite a bit.
The people who say “don’t hurt the beauty-ful animals,” and the people like Oz who advocate killing all the large predators so everyone is safe to go swimming/hiking/snowmobiling/fishing are both foolish.
Kate’s got it right in this case: wild animals who start to see humans as prey or potential prey need to be either scared witless – every time out – or killed. These coyotes who trot in close, who are aggressive and nip at kids and kill pets, are either in parks or in urban/suburban areas – i.e. the places where nobody ever shoots at them. Or sends big dogs after them. Or poisons them. Or chases them on skidoos, or…
When you see coyotes in farming country they’re skulking around in the middle of a field, far away from any buildings, and looking kinda nervous. There’s a reason for that.
Many moons ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth I was going to cultivate some land on my Grandfather’s farm. I fired up the old Case and set out down the trail with the faithful Queensland Blue Heeler in hot pursuit. That silly dog would follow the tractor all day long and only sneak away for a few minutes to get a drink from a nearby slough. After about 10 minutes I noticed that it looked like there were two identical dogs chasing each other around the tractor. After a moment I realized one of the dogs was actually a coyote. I turned the tractor around and went back to the house to get the rifle kept just inside the back door just in case the coyotes attacked the chickens or cattle. The coyote ran off into the bush before I got back to the house but I decided to get the rifle anyways. Sure enough before I got out to the field the coyote resumed its game of tag with the dog. About the third time around the tractor the coyote lay dead in its tracks and I was deaf from the rifle report inside the cab of the tractor! My hearing recovered but the coyote is still dead.
I have always found the best technique in escaping dangerous animals is to become the aggressor. Simply making loud threatening noises and moving towards the animal is enough to scare away most bears and coyotes.
madmaxxx, Bryce
I concede I have lost this exchange simply because of the obvious omission on my part regarding the resourcefulness of humans as illustrated by the appropriate Star Trek reference.
A human could simply evade a predator/adversary long enough to construct a cannon. So simple it is mind boggling.
Thanks madmaxxx for putting into relative social context regarding the images used in society today which actually drove the point of the original discussion ala Disney home.
When darkness falls if I go outside and listen I’ll hear that the party has started and is in full swing in the corn fields.
Deer, coyotes, rabbits, coons, wild turkeys and lord-knows-what in a luncheon free for all in my crop. What clears that mess of wild life out in hurry running for their lives? The combine. So man and technology win.
That’s what put’s us at the top of the food chain.
End of story.
Bambie syndrome.
Toronto has a wildlife centre??
I bet you they throw great parties.
Joe, I enjoyed your story: “I have always found the best technique in escaping dangerous animals is to become the aggressor.”
In short, animals understand dominance, plain and simple. ‘Try to be ooo, ahhhh, you’re-so-sweet-let-me-pat-you will get you into real trouble — and fast.
Patting the snake is a recipe for curtains.
Please, quit picking on Walt Disney. It isn’t his fault most of humanity is stupid. That’s like blaming comic book writers because someone got a cape and thought they could fly… err, bad example.
Anyway, this victim was hiking in a National Park if memory serves me and even being caught packin’ on fed land could be a whole lot of trouble. Same goes for trying to shoot a coyote in any urban area. Good news is when you are in the slammer for all those weapons convictions, you will be first in line for your flu shot 😉
“Walt Disney, I’d like you to meet Kenton Carnegie, Kenton , Walt.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenton_Joel_Carnegie_wolf_attack
(Wolf attack… for your lying eyes.)
Doggies, wolfs or kyotes olfactory decides almost everything about them, like when a dog sniffs your butt they can probably tell what you eat and your general aggressiveness, and wild animals will exploit cues of nonaggression–cityslicker females.
“I live in southern SW Ontario and there hasn’t been a black bear around here for close to a hundred years that I know of.”
Actually blanks there was a black bear sited around Petrolia Ont last year. We seen a lone bull Moose the fall before than in North Lambton.
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=f4e26222-7c6e-4625-a58e-77ee0de9e9b7
blanks has an AR15? Sounds like he up-graded from his .22. The coyote guys hereabouts use well scoped mini-14’s (.223/5.6NATO)
A long time ago and far far away, I recall having a handy device. A .55 Boys fitted with a good ‘scope—-it would easily and successfully engage thin skinned game under 200lb out to about a mile or more….kicked like a mule—the terminal effect was impressive.
Rank does have privileges—some other sorry SOB got to hump that brute, through the boonies…I carried the ammo….
Blanks there are lots of coyotes here in Lambton County. I seen three cross the road in front of me last week. Here is an article from the Sarnia Observer, about a worker encountering a pair of coyotes in Canatara park. He quit after been given an umbrella for protection.
http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1530057
If you read it you certainly get the feel that coyotes come before people that is until pets start disappearing then it will be anything goes.
I remember, as a boy-child, going out to the farm for a week or so each summer. My granduncle would take the occasional pop at very distant coyotes … but most times he banged a couple of pieces of wood together … it sounded like a rifle report. They ran … this was almost every night. That farm is suburbia now.
The terminally urban ask:
Are wild animals really afraid of fire?**serious answers only please.?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071208211410AAoKLad
Like, really, how many of thousands years has man known this? How long would someone who didn’t this know last a couple of hundred years ago?
For all you people that say that we should just venture into wild animal territory unarmed,try it in one of the wild animal areas in your city.Go alone and walk down one of the dangerous streets in your city,alone,unarmed and vulnerable.If you do it you better have a knife like Mik Dundee and know how to use it.
Update – This comments thread has been nominated for the distinguished SDA Best Comments Thread Ever Award, as exemplified by the following;
I concede I have lost this exchange simply because of the obvious omission on my part regarding the resourcefulness of humans as illustrated by the appropriate Star Trek reference.
Posted by Kate at October 31, 2009 10:42 AM
Nah. It should be for the best example of urban stupidity,as shown by the enviro-nut daughter and desparate housewife Mommy who still thinks all wild animals are cute and cuddly.
I say bring more and bigger predators into the urban cores. Lot’s of free,dumbed downed,sheeple food there for them.And less of them to waste my tax bucks(the urbanites).
“In short, animals understand dominance, plain and simple.”
Actually, people understand dominance pretty well also.
Except today’s generation of Western leaders, who seem to understand submission a whole lot better.
Hm, just pondering, a new hybrid coyote species in an apparent increase in numbers and an increase of human vegans meeting in the most convenient of places – for the wild animals.
Never would have thought I’d ever hear of coyotes killing an adult. That is odd though.
At a recent Press Conference of the National Association of Predatory Animals, in attendance were: Barry Bear, Walter Wolf, Carla Cougar and their spokesperson Carrie Coyote.
Carrie Coyote in responding to a reporter’s question stated
“If Mother Nature didn’t want us to eat people she would not have made them out of meat.”
think that mean old people shouldn’t hurt poor predators? go for a hike in the boonies unarmed.by the way say hi to darwinian theory for me.it’s tough being a vegan animal rights activist one day and predator shit the next.
What bothers me most about this is that the police were called and arrived while the attack was still in progress….meaning someone was watching this the whole time with out stepping in to help the poor girl.
I liked it where the deceased’s mother says she was
a “seasoned naturalist”. Maybe some juniper berries
she ate made her yummy to the coyotes.
“I liked it where the deceased’s mother says she was
a “seasoned naturalist”. Maybe some juniper berries
she ate made her yummy to the coyotes.
Posted by: John Lewis at October 31, 2009 11:02 PM
The seasoned naturalist bit is the funny part,and where urbanites are so kooky. Naturalists have diddly-squat to do with nature’s way.They just eat a ton of alfalfa and then crap about how eco-friendly they are. Real people in tune with nature know you don’t screw around with predators,unless you are prepared to defend yourself.
John Lewis – “seasoned naturalist”? That’s in such bad taste.
Jack;
There are a lot of people who would be nothing more than another victim if they attempted to step in against two revved up coyotes in full attack mode. Hard to judge without knowing who called it in.
I find some of these comments to be in bad taste. The mother is grieving and trying to make sense of something horrific. She’s lost her daughter. I generally like this blog but this particular thread is really making me reconsider. Yeah. You’re right. I’ll just bugger off then.
Maybe if the young lady in question had read Jack London’s Call of the Wild or White Fang, or even just his story To Build A Fire, instead of the dusty prose of the dessicated Margaret Atwood which she was doubtless ordered to read in school, she might have had an appreciation for how thin the line between cuddly pet and wild animal is.
Oh, and Oz – given your choice of nickname, I’m a bit startled that you need to be reminded of this – but exterminating the top tier predators? You might want to look up “Australia” and “rabbits”.
When I first heard about this young woman dying I thought, “that’s tragic.”
Then, as I considered it further and read about who she was, I began to wonder if this girl, born and raised – as it appears – in the city, simply had the “Disney” perspective of animals, and thus was the author of her own demise.
Perhaps she was awaiting the coyotes approach as if she was Uncle Remus strumming “Zippadeedoodaa” on her folky guitar.
DaWG
A resident of America’s Hat.©