The headlines here are exclaiming over the coyote attack earlier this week, when a young woman visitor from Toronto was killed by two rogue males while she was on a hiking trail in Cape Breton.

Wildlife experts are using words such as “bizarre”, “rare” and “abnormal” to describe the incident, because coyotes almost never attack humans. Until Tuesday, there had been only one other recorded human death in North America from a coyote attack (in 1981, in California). I am heartened by these responses while also grieving for the family and friends of the young woman who was killed.

There are often coyotes up in the woods around the back field. We seldom see them, but their cries at night are unmistakable. One of our dogs has taken up “coyote duty” and would spend hours barking back at them, if he were allowed.

There is the length of a city block between the door of the house and the door of Bill’s office in the barn. He often works evenings and I occasionally visit him there. For much of the year, my walk there is in the dark, lit by the moon and stars, and one streetlight that the previous owner installed beside the driveway. This time of year, most of the light is hidden by the leaves on the willow tree beside it.

In Hamilton, I was afraid every time I stepped outside after dark – and would never had walked unaccompanied down the block to the convenience store on the corner. That would be about the same distance from the house to the barn here.

I have never felt fear here until this week. I hope this will pass. The experts advise that, seeing an approaching coyote, I should clap my hands, make myself appear as big as possible, throw rocks at them and NEVER turn my back on the animal. (If only city assailants could be scared off that easily!)

So, are you prepared to accept the danger from wildlife in the country?

Here’s an interesting sidebar: Most coyotes in the eastern part of Canada and the U.S. have wolf as part of their genetic makeup because they mixed with red wolves as they spread eastward. This results in an animal that is about twelve pounds heavier on average than the coyote on the western part of the continent.

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