CHETICAMP, N.S. – Taylor Mitchell’s death one year ago came as a shocking tragedy that baffled wildlife experts and changed the public’s perception of Canada’s eastern coyote.
The Toronto singer-songwriter died in a Halifax hospital Oct. 28, 2009, one day after she was mauled by two coyotes during a hike on the Skyline Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, during a break in her Maritimes music tour.
The 19-year-old was travelling alone to the top of French Mountain when some hikers who had previously noticed the animals heard her screams for help and saw the coyotes viciously attacking her. RCMP later shot one of the coyotes involved in the mauling and sent its remains for a necropsy.
To this day, Mitchell’s family says police and scientists still haven’t found a reason for the attack – considered the first recorded fatality of its kind in Nova Scotia, and possibly Canada.
Emily Mitchell quietly visited Cape Breton in May, hiking the same trail where her daughter spent some of her last hours. She spoke to paramedics, park wardens, RCMP, and to hospital staff in Cheticamp, where Taylor was stabilized for an air ambulance trip to Halifax. After sustaining multiple head wounds, Taylor died due to extreme blood loss.
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During her Cheticamp trip, Mitchell said she felt residents were fearful due to the circumstances of the assault. Taylor wasn’t carrying food and the coyotes involved in the attack were believed to be well-fed and disease-free.
“It really saddened me that everybody, they’re afraid,” she said over the phone from Toronto. “You live in this beautiful place. You should be able to go out and enjoy the wild.”
Since her daughter’s death, Mitchell believes more and more people are reporting coyote aggression. Based on her research and conversations with wildlife experts, she also believes the species is growing more aggressive.
In collaboration with the David Suzuki Foundation, Mitchell recently set up a trust fund in her daughter’s name. The money will be used to educate the public about the delicate balance between human and wildlife interaction in rural and urban settings.
Mitchell called Nova Scotia’s $20 bounty on coyote pelts a knee-jerk reaction, although she agrees something needs to be done. A report on the province’s website admits a $50 bounty on coyotes from 1982 to 1986 did little, if anything, to slow population growth.
“I think that government and scientists know that it doesn’t work. A lot of innocent coyotes are being killed in the process. The aggressive ones need to be dealt with – whether they need to be killed, I don’t know.
“It wasn’t so much a fluke, because it could happen again. We have to keep that in mind, but it was unusual. I also think there was a message in it, and I think that somehow I’ve become the messenger.”
Mitchell said she is consulting park staff in Cape Breton about building an appropriate memorial for Taylor.
“I needed to be able to see what she saw before she died, and it was a really beautiful place and it’s nice to know – it comforts me to know – that she had these beautiful pictures in the head,” she said. “I feel a connection to Cape Breton. . . . I’ve made a lot of friends out there through this.”
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